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NYU IFA LIBRARY

Ecsa!Siai;cs'J3CEax:j;aa<v

The

McMee

Lil)rai}'

of Ancient

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES
INSTITUTE OF FINE ARTS

A THOUSAND MILES UP THE NILE

A THOUSAND MILES UP THE iNlLE

AMELIA B. EDWARDS

AUTHOR OF 'rNTROIiriEN i-KAKS AND UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS,' ' LORD RRACKENBURV.

' haubara's histok'V," etc.

WITH UPWARDS OF SEVENTY ILLUSTRATIONS ENGRAVED ON WOOD BY G. PEARSON.
AFTER FINISHED DRAWINGS EXECUTED ON THE SPOT BY THE AUTHOR.

gektassee.

L< )ND()N

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, Ltd.
New.York; E. p. Button and Co.

Fiae Arts

\89B

PRINTED BY THE MOTLEY PRESS, LONDON.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR
O\\JJ-'0A\]/ 117 J H ril/S VOLUME

UNTRODDEN PEAKS
AND UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS:.

A MIDSU\rMRR RAMBLE IN THE DOLOMITES.

PREFACE

TO THE SECOND EDITION

r IRST published in 1877, this book has been out of
print for several years. I have therefore very gladly
revised it for a new and cheaper edition. In so revising
it, I have corrected some of the historical notes by the
light of later discoveries ; but I have left the narrative
untouched. Of the political changes which have come
over the land of Egypt since that narrative was written,
I have taken no note ; and because I in no sense offer
myself as a guide to others, I say nothing of the altered
conditions under which most Nile travellers now perform
the trip. All these things will be more satisfactorily,
and more practically, learned from the pages of Baedeker
and Murray.

AMELIA B. EDWARDS.

Westbury-on-Trym,
Octobe7- 1888.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

" Un voyage en Egypte, c'est une partie d'ines et une promenade en bateau
entrem61ees de ruines." — Ampere.

Ampere has put Egypt in an epigram. "A donkey-ride
and a boating-trip interspersed with ruins" does, in fact, sum
up in a single line the whole experience of the Nile traveller.
Apropos of these three things — the donkeys, the boat, and the
ruins — it may be said that a good English saddle and a com-
fortable dahabeeyah add very considerably to the pleasure of
the journey ; and that the more one knows about the past
history of the country, the more one enjoys the ruins.

Of the comparative merits of wooden boats, iron boats, and
steamers, I am not qualified to speak. We, however, saw one
iron dahabeeyah aground upon a sandbank, where, as we after-
wards learned, it remained for three weeks. We also saw the
wrecks of three steamers between Cairo and the First Cataract.
It certainly seemed to us that the old-fashioned wooden daha-
beeyah— flat-bottomed, drawing little water, light in hand, and
easily poled off when stuck — was the one vessel best constructed
for the navigation of the Nile. Other considerations, as time
and cost, are, of course, involved in this question. The choice
between dahabeeyah and steamer is like the choice between
travelling with post-horses and travelling by rail. The one
is expensive, leisurely, delightful ; the other is cheap, swift.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

and comparatively comfortless. Those who are content to
snatch but a glimpse of the Nile will doubtless prefer the
steamer. I may add that the whole cost of the Philae — food,
dragoman's wages, boat - hire, cataract, everything included
except wine — was about £,\o per day.

With regard to temperature, we found it cool — even cold,
sometimes — in December and January ; mild in February ;
very warm in March and April, The climate of Nubia is
simply perfect. It never rains ; and once past the limit of the
tropic, there is no morning or evening chill upon the air. Yet
even in Nubia, and especially along the forty miles which divide
Abou Simbel from Wady Halfeh, it is cold when the wind
blows strongly from the north.^

Touching the title of this book, it may be objected that
the distance from the port of Alexandria to the Second Cataract
falls short of a thousand miles. It is, in fact, calculated at
964^ miles. But from the Rock of Abusir, five miles above
Wady Halfeh, the traveller looks over an extent of country far
exceeding the thirty or thirty-five miles necessary to make up
the full tale of a thousand. We distinctly saw from this point
the summits of mountains which lie about 145 miles to the
southward of Wady Halfeh, and which look down upon the
Third Cataract.

Perhaps I ought to say something in answer to the repeated
inquiries of those who looked for the publication of this volume
a year ago. I can, however, only reply that the Writer, instead
of giving one year, has given two years to the work. To write

1 For the benefit of any who desire more exact information, I may add
that a table of average temperatures, carefully registered day by day and
week by week, is to be found at the end of Mr. H. Villiers Stuart's ' Nile
Gleanings.^ [Note to Second Edition.]

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

rapidly about Egypt is impossible. The subject grows with
the book, and with the knowledge one acquires by the way.
It is, moreover, a subject beset with such obstacles as must
impede even the swiftest pen ; and to that swiftest pen I lay no
claim. Moreover, the writer who seeks to be accurate, has
frequently to go for his facts, if not actually to original sources
(which would be the texts themselves), at all events to trans-
lations and commentaries locked up in costly folios, or dispersed
far and wide among the pages of scientific journals and the
transactions of learned societies. A date, a name, a passing
reference, may cost hours of seeking. To revise so large a
number of illustrations, and to design tailpieces from jottings
taken here and there in that pocket sketch-book which is the
sketcher's constant companion, has also consumed no small
amount of time. This by way of apology.

More pleasant is it to remember labour lightened than to
consider time spent ; and I have yet to thank the friends who
have spared no pains to help this book on its way. To S.
Birch, Esq., LL.D., etc. etc., so justly styled " the Parent in
this country of a sound school of Egyptian philology," who
besides translating the hieratic and hieroglyphic inscriptions
contained in Chapter xviii., has also, with infinite kindness, seen
the whole of that chapter through the press ; to Reginald
Stuart Poole, Esq. ; to Professor R. Owen, C.B., etc. etc. ; to
Sir G. W. Cox, I desire to offer my hearty and grateful
acknowledgments. It is surely not least among the glories of
learning, that those who adorn it most and work hardest should
ever be readiest to share the stores of their knowledge.

I am anxious also to express my cordial thanks to Mr.
G. Pearson, under whose superintendence the whole of the
illustrations have been engraved. To say that his patience and

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

courtesy have been inexhaustible, and that he has spared
neither time nor cost in the preparation of the blocks, is but a
dry statement of facts, and conveys no idea of the kind of
labour involved. Where engravings of this kind are executed,
not from drawings made at first-hand upon the wood, but from
water-colour drawings which have not only to be reduced in
size, but to be, as it were, translated into black and white,
the difficulty of the work is largely increased. In order to
meet this difficulty and to ensure accuracy, Mr. Pearson has
not only called in the services of accomplished draughtsmen,
but in many instances has even photographed the subjects
direct upon the wood. Of the engraver's work — which speaks
for itself — I will only say that I do not know in what way
it could be bettered. It seems to me that some of these
blocks may stand for examples of the farthest point to which
the art of engraving upon wood has yet been carried.

The principal illustrations have all been drawn upon the
wood by Mr. Percival Skelton ; and no one so fully as myself
can appreciate how much the subjects owe to the delicacy of
his pencil, and to the artistic feelings with which he has inter-
preted the original drawings.

Of the fascination of Egyptian travel, of the charm of the
Nile, of the unexpected and surpassing beauty of the desert^
of the ruins which are the wonder of the world, I have said
enough elsewhere. I must, however, add that I brought home
with me an impression that things and people are much less
changed in Egypt than we of the present day are wont to
suppose. I believe that the physique and life of the modern
Fellah is almost identical with the physique and life of that
ancient Egyptian labourer whom we know so well in the wall-
paintings of the tombs. Square in the shoulders, slight but

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

strong in the limbs, full-lipped, brown-skinned, we see him
wearing the same loin-cloth, plying the same shaduf, ploughing
with the same plough, preparing the same food in the same
way, and eating it with his fingers from the same bowl, as
did his forefathers of six thousand years ago.

The household life and social ways of even the provincial
gentry are little changed. Water is poured on one's hands before
going to dinner from'just such a ewer and into just such a basin
as we see pictured in the festival-scenes at Thebes. Though the
lotus-blossom is missing, a bouquet is still given to each guest
when he takes his place at table. The head of the sheep
killed for the banquet is still given to the poor. Those who
are helped to meat or drink touch the head and breast in
acknowledgment, as of old. The musicians still sit at the
lower end of the hall ; the singers yet clap their hands in
time to their own voices ;. the dancing-girls still dance, and
the buffoon in his high cap still performs his uncouth antics,
for the entertainment of the guests. Water is brought to
table in jars of the same shape manufactured at the same
town, as in the days of Cheops and Chephren ; and the mouths
of the bottles are filled in precisely the same way with fresh
leaves and flowers. The cucumber stuffed with minced-meat
was a favourite dish in those times of old ; and I can testify
to its excellence in 1874. Little boys in Nubia yet wear the
side-lock that graced the head of Rameses in his youth ; and
little girls may be seen in a garment closely resembling the
girdle worn by young princesses of the time of Thothmes the
First. A Sheykh still walks with a long staff; a Nubian
belle still plaits her tresses in scores of little tails ; and the
pleasure-boat of the modern Governor or Mudir, as well as
the dahabeeyah hired by the European traveller, reproduces

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

in all essential features the painted galleys represented in the
tombs of the kings.

In these and in a hundred other instances, all of which
came under my personal observation and have their place in
the following pages, it seemed to me that any obscurity which
yet hangs over the problem of life and thought in ancient
Egypt originates most probably with ourselves. Our own
habits of life and thought are so complex that they shut
us off from the simplicity of that early world. So it was with
the problem of hieroglyphic writing. The thing was so obvious
that no one could find it out. As long as the world persisted
in believing that every hieroglyph was an abstruse symbol, and
every hieroglyphic inscription a profound philosophical rebus,
the mystery of Egyptian literature remained insoluble. Then
at last came Champollion's famous letter to Dacier, showing
that the hieroglyphic signs were mainly alphabetic and syllabic,
and that the language they spelt was only Coptic after all.

If there were not thousands who still conceive that the sun
and moon were created, and are kept going, for no other
purpose than to lighten the darkness of our little planet ; if
only the other day a grave gentleman had not written a
perfectly serious essay to show that the world is a flat plain,
one would scarcely believe that there could still be people who
doubt that ancient Egyptian is now read and translated as
fluently as ancient Greek. Yet an Englishman whom I met
in Egypt — an Englishman who had long been resident in
Cairo, and who was well acquainted with the great Egypto-
logists who are attached to the service of the Khedive —
assured me of his profound disbelief in the discovery of
Champollion. " In my opinion," said he, " not one of these
gentlemen can read a line of hieroglyphics."

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

As I then knew nothing of Egyptian, I could say nothing
to controvert this speech. Since that time, however, and
while writing this book, I have been led on step by step to
the study of hieroglyphic writing ; and I now know that
Egyptian can be read, for the simple reason that I find
myself able to read an Egyptian sentence.

My testimony may not be of much value ; but I give it
for the little that it is worth.

The study of Egyptian literature has advanced of late years
with rapid strides. Papyri are found less frequently than they
were some thirty or forty years ago ; but the translation of
those contained in the museums of Europe goes on now more
diligently than at any former time. Religious books, variants
of the Ritual, moral essays, maxims, private letters, hymns, epic
poems, historical chronicles, accounts, deeds of sale, medical,
magical, and astronomical treatises, geographical records, travels,
and even romances and tales, are brought to light, photographed,
facsimiled in chromo-lithography, printed in hieroglyphic type,
and translated in forms suited both to the learned and to the
general reader.

Not all this literature is written, however, on papyrus.
The greater proportion of it is carved in stone. Some is
painted on wood, written on linen, leather, potsherds, and
other substances. So the old mystery of Egypt, which was
her literature, has vanished. The key to the hieroglyphs is
the master-key that opens every door. Each year that now
passes over our heads sees some old problem solved. Each
day brings some long-buried truth to light.

Some thirteen years ago,^ a distinguished American artist

1 These dates, it is to be remembered, refer to the year 1877, when
the first edition of this book was published. [Note to Second Edition.]

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

painted a very beautiful picture called The Secret of the Sphinx.
In its widest sense, the Secret of the Sphinx would mean, I
suppose, the whole uninterpreted and undiscovered past of
Egypt. In its narrower sense, the Secret of the Sphinx was,
till quite lately, the hidden significance of the human-headed
lion which is one of the typical subjects of Egyptian Art.

Thirteen years is a short time to look back upon ; yet great
things have been done in Egypt, and in Egyptology, since
then. Edfu, with its extraordinary wealth of inscriptions, has
been laid bare. The whole contents of the Boulak Museum
have been recovered from the darkness of the tombs. The very
mystery of the Sphinx has been disclosed ; and even within
the last eighteen months, M. Chabas announces that he has
discovered the date of the pyramid of Mycerinus ; so for the
first time establishing the chronology of ancient Egypt upon
an ascertained foundation. Thus the work goes on ; students
in their libraries, excavators under Egyptian skies, toiling
along different paths towards a common goal. The picture
means more to-day than it meant thirteen years ago — means
more, even, than the artist intended. The Sphinx has no
secret now, save for the ignorant.

In the picture, we see a brown, half-naked, toil-worn Fellah
laying his ear to the stone lips of a colossal Sphinx, buried to
the neck in sand. Some instinct of the old Egyptian blood
tells him that the creature is God-like. He is conscious of
a great mystery lying far back in the past. He has, perhaps,
a dim, confused notion that the Big Head knows it all, what-
ever it may be. He has never heard of the morning-song of
Memnon ; but he fancies, somehow, that those closed lips
might speak if questioned. Fellah and Sphinx are alone
together in the desert. It is night, and the stars are shining.

PREFACE rO THE FIRST EDTTIOX.

Has lie chosen the rii;ht hour? \\'hat does he seek to know?
What docs he hope to hear ?

Mr. Vedder has permitted me to enrich this book with an
engraving- from his picture. It tells its own tale ; or rather it
tells as much of its own tale as the artist chooses.

^SSiUM »t.t>ai.Ti

Each must interpret for himself
The Secret of The Sphinx.

AMELIA li. I'lDW'ARDS.

WKSTBrR^-ON-TlvVM,

Gloitestersiiiki,.
Da. 1S77.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

CAIRO AND THF. C.KKAT PYRAMID.

PAGE

Arrival at Cairo — Shephearcrs Hotel — The Moskee — The Khan

Khaleel — The Bazaars — Dahabeeyahs — Ghizeh — The Pyramids i

chaptp:r II.

CAH-IO AND THE :\[ECCA PILCRIMACIK.

The Mosque of Sultan Hassan — Moslems at prayer — Mosque of
Mehemet All — View from the Platform — Departure of the
Caravan for Mecca — The Bab en-Nasr — The Procession — The
^lahmal — Howling" Dervishes — The Mosque of 'Amr — The
Shubra Road . . . . . . .18

CHAPTER III.

CAIRO TO BEDRESHAYN.

Departure for the Nile Voyage — -Farewell to Cairo- -Turra — The
PhiUc and crew — The Dahabeeyah and the Nile sailor — Native
music — Bedreshayn . . . . . • • 35

CHAPTER r\

SAKKARAH AND MEMPHIS

The Palms of Memphis — Three groups of Pyramids — The M. B.'s
and their groom — Relic-hunting — The Pyramid of Ouenephes
— The Serapeum — A royal raid — The Tomb of Ti— The
Fallen Colossus — Memphis . . , . ,47

XX COXTEXTS.

CHAPTER V.

BEDRESHAYN TO MINIEH.

PAGK

The rule nf the Nile — The Shaduf — Beni Suef — Thieves by night —
The Chief of the Guards — A sand-storm — "Holy Sheykh
Cotton '" — The Convent of the Pulley — A Copt — The Shadow
of the World — Minieh — A native market — Prices of fjrovisions
- — The Dom palm — Fortune-telling — Ophthalmia . . 69

CHAPTER VI.

MINIEH TO SIUT.

Christmas Day — The Party completed— Christmas Dinner on the
Nile — A Fantasia — Noah's Ark — Birds of Egypt — Gebel Abu-
fayda — Unknown Stehe — Imprisoned — The Scarab-beetle —
Manfalut — Siut — Red and black pottery — Ancient tombs —
View over the plain — Biblical legend . . . .88

CHAPTER YH.

SIUT TO DENDERAH.

An " F\i)crienced Surgeon'' — Passing scenery — Girgch — Sheykh
Sclini — Kasr es Syad — Forced labour — Temple of Denderah—
Cleopatra — Benighted . . . . .107

CHAPTER VHL

THEBES AND KARNAK.

Luxor — Donkey-boys — Topography of Ancient Thebes — Pylons of
Luxor — Poem of Pentaur — The solitary Obelisk — Interior of the
Temple of Luxor — Polite postmaster — Ride to Karnak — Great
Temple of Karnak — The Hypostyle Hall — A world of ruins . ijj

CHAPTER IX-

THEBES TO ASSl'-AN.

A Storm on the Nile — Erment— A gentlemanly Bey — Esneh — A
buried Temple — A long day's sketching — Salame the chivalrous
— Remarkable Coin — Antichi — The Fellah- — The pylons of
Fdfu — An exciting race — The Philaj wins by a length . -15 5

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER X.

ASStJAN AND ELEPHANTINK.

PAGE

Assuan — Strange wares for sale — Madame Nubia — Castor oil — The
black Governor — An enormous blunder — Tannhiiuser in Egypt
- — Elephantine — Inscribed potsherds — Bazaar of Assuan — The
Camel — A ride in the Desert — The Obelisk of the Quarry — A
death ni the town . . . . . .174

CHAPTER XL

THE CATARACT AND THE DESERT.

Scenery of the Cataract — The Sheykh of the Cataract — Vexatious
delays — The Painter's vocabulary — Mahatta — Ancient bed of
the Nile — Abyssinian Caravan . . . .194

CHAPTER Xn.

Pharaoh's Bed — The Temples — Champollion's discovery- — The
I'ainted Columns- -Coptic Phihu — Phihc and Desaix — Chamber
of Osiris-— Inscribed Rock — \'iew from the roof of the Temple, zoy

CHAPTER XHI.

PHIL^ TO KOROSKO.

Nubian scenery — A sand-slope — Missing Yusef — Trading by the
way — Panoramic views — Volcanic cones — Dakkeh — Korosko —
Letters from home . . . . . -234

CHAPTER XIV.

KOROSKO TO ABOU SIMBEL.

El-'Id el-Kebir — Stalking wild ducks — Temple of Amada — Fine art
of the Thothmes — Derr — A native funeral — Temple of Derr —
The "fair" families — The Sakkieh — Arrival at .\bou Simbel by
ninunliglu .,,.,,. 244

CONTEXTS.

CHAPTER XV.

RAMi:SKS THIC GRKAI.

I'AG rc

\'()ulh lit Kanieses the (ireat — Treaty wiili tlic Klieta His wives —
llis j^rcat works — The Captivity — j^itliom ami Kaineses —
Kauiser and Keniamon — The Birth of Moses — Tomb of Osy-
niandias — Character of Rameses the Great . . -262

CHAPTER XVI.

ABOU SIM RE L.

The Colossi — I'ortraits of Rameses the (ireat — The Great Sand-drift
— The smaller Temples — "Rameses and Nefertari"' — The (ireat
Temple — .A monster tableau — Alone in the Great Temple- —
Trail of a crocodile — Cleaning; the Colossus — The sufferings of
the sketcher ....... 284

CHAP'I'ER XVH.

•J'HE SECOND CATARACT.

X'olcanic mountains — Kalat .\dda — Gebel esh-.Shems — The first
crocodile — Dull scenery — Wady Halfeh — The Rock of .\busir
— The Second Cataract — The great view — Crocodile-slaying —
Excavating a tumulus — Comforts of home on the Nile . .311

CHAPTER XVHL

DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIMBEL.

Society at Abou Simbel — The Painter discovers a rock-cut chamber
— .Sunday employment — Reinforcement of natives — Excavation
— The .Sheykh— Discovery of human remains — Discovery of
pylon and staircase — Decorations of Painted Chamber -In-
scriptions . . . , . . .325

CHAPTER XIX.

BACK THROUCH NUBIA.

Temples ad uijini/m/i — Tosko — Crocodiles Derr and .A.mada again
— Wady .Sabooah — Haughty beauty -.\ nameless city — A river

coxTEyrs.

of sand — Undiscovered Temple — Maharrakeh — Dakkeh — For-
tress of Kobban — C.erf Hossayn — Dendoor — Bayt-el-WcUy —
The Karnak of Nubia — Silco of the Ethiopians — Tafah — Dabod

Baby-shootinc[ — A dilemma Justice in f^gypt -The last of

Phikc . . . . • • .354

CHATTER XX.

SILSII.IS AND KDFf.

Shooting the Cataract — Kom Ombo — Quarries of Silsilis— Edfu the
most perfect of Egyptian Temples — View from the pylons —
Sand columns ...-•■ 39°

CllAriKR XXI.

THi:i!i:s.

Luxor again — Imitation " Anteekahs " — Digging for Mummies —
Tombs of Thebes— The Kamesseum — The granite Colossus —
Medinet Habu — The Pavilion of Rameses III -The Great
Chronicle — An Arab story-teller — Gournah — Bal) cl Moh'ik —
The shadowless Valley of Death — The Tombs of the Kings —
Stolen goods The French House — An Arab dinner and fan-
tasia—The Coptic Church at Luxor— A Coptic service— A
Coptic Bishop ..-••• *+"9

CHAPTER XXn.

ABYDUS AND CAIRO.

Last weeks on the Nile— Spring in Egypt— Ninety-nine in the shade
— Samata— Unbroken donkeys— The Plain of Abydus— Har-
vest-time--A Biblical idyll— Arabat the Buried— Mena— Origin
of the Egyptian People — Temple of Seti — New Tablet of
Abydus— Abydus and Teni — Kom-es-Sultan — Visit to a native

Aga The Hareem — Condition of women in Egypt — Back at

Cairo " In the name of the Prophet, Cakes '." — The Molid-

en-Nebee — A human causeway -The Boulak Museum — Prmce
Ra-hotep and Princess Nefer-t— Early drive to Ghizeh— Ascent
of the Great Pyramid — The Sphinx- The view fnmi the Top —
The end ....••• 466

COA'TEA'TS.

APPENDIX.

rA<;i'.

T. A. M'rallum, Ksq., to Liie Editor of 'Thk Times' . . 493

II. The Egyptian Fantheon ..... 493

III. The Religious Belief ()'' llie Egyptians . . 495

I\\ Egyptian Chronology .... 497

V. Contcnijjoiarj Chronology of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Haljylon 499

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Great Rock-cut Temple, Ahoi

Gertassee

The Secret of the S

Vedder, Esq.
Cairo Donkey .
Tunis Market, Cairo
Carpet Bazaar, Cairo
Native Cangias .
Head of Ti
MitrahIneh
The Shaduf
" Holy Sheykh Cotton
Market Boat, Minieh

GEP.EL AliUFAVDA

River-side Tombs near Siut

SlUT

Girgeh

Kasr es Syau

Denderah

Cleopatra

Sheykh Selim

Colonnade of Horemhei^

Temple of Luxor

Hypostyle Hall, Karnak

Temple of Esneh

Native Boat, Ass Can ,

SiMP.EL, Nubia Frontispiece.
Title-page.
After ;i raiiitini; by El.IHU

XVII

. 11

. 78

. S7

• 92

. 98

. Ill

» 113

. 117

I 22

. 131

• 135

. 138

. 149

. 161

. ill

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

HIL.E

Camef, at Ass tan

Sudan Traders ai Mahatta

Pharaoh's Bed, I'hil.i-: .

Grand Colonnade, Phil.e

Painted Columns, Portico ov T aucf. Temple

Early Christian Shrine, Phil

Shrines of Osiris, i, 2, and 3

Resurrection of Osiris

Inscribed Monolithic Ro( k, 1

Temple of Dakkeh. Xuisia

Nubian Jewellery

Temple of Derr, Nubia

Sakkieh, or Water-wheel

Cartouches of Rameses ihe Great

Rameses the Great (Bayt-el-WcIIy)

Rameses the Great (Abydus) .

Rameses the Great (Abou Simbcl)

Profile of Rameses II (From the Smithernmost

Simbel)
Smaller Temple, Abou Simbel, Ni:bia
Cleaning the Colossus
Wadv Halfeh .
The Rock of Abusir
Entrance of Speos
Ground-plan
Pattern of Cornice
Standard of Horus Akokri
Rameses II of Speos
Temple of Amada
Temple of Wady Sabooah
Head-dress of a King .
Temple of Gerf Hossayn, Nuf
Temple of Dendoor
Head-dresses of Kings .
Temple of Kalabsheh, Nubia
Ruined Temple at Tafah^ Nui

Phil.^-:

PAGE

201
206
209
217
218

-7, 228
229
232
241
243
-53

263
286
286
286

Colossus

Abou

287
294
308
3f6

324

33^
33')
340
342
3S7
359
3(^S
371
37^
374
37 S

LIST OF ILUSTRATIONS.

Temple of Dadod

Ruined Convent (Conic) nkar rHir..E

Phil^ from the South

Nubian Woman and Child

Temple of Kom Omp.o, Jppek E(;\pt

Goddess Ta-ur-t (Silsilis)

Goddess Ta-ur-t (Philoe)

The Lovely Arab Maiden

Digging for Mummies .

Osiride Court and Fallen Colossis, Rames

Palace Entrance, Medinet Habu

Vases and Goblets (Medinet Habu)

Osiride Court, Medinet Habu

The " French House," Luxor .

Columns of Amenhotep IH (Luxor)

Sakkieh at Siut

" In the Name of the Prophet — Cakes !

Prince Ra-Hotep and Princess Nefer-t

Sphinx and Pyramids .

Broken Sistrum

KUM,

HKI'.l'.

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CHAPTER I.

CAIRO AND THE GREAT PYRAMID.

It is the traveller's lot to dine at many table-d'hotcs in the
course of many wanderings ; but it seldom befalls him to make
one of a more miscellaneous gathering than that which overfills
the great dining-room at Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo during
the beginning and height of the regular Egyptian season.
Here assemble daily some two to three hundred persons of all
ranks, nationalities, and pursuits ; half of whom are Anglo-
Indians homeward or outward bound, European residents, or
visitors established in Cairo for the winter. The other half, it
may be taken for granted, are going up the Nile. So com-
posite and incongruous is this body of Nile-goers, young and
old, well-dressed and ill-dressed, learned and unlearned, that the
new-comer's first impulse is to inquire from what motives so
many persons of dissimilar tastes and training can be led to
embark upon an expedition which is, to say the least of it, very
tedious, very costly, and of an altogether exceptional interest.

His curiosity, however, is soon gratified. Before two days
are over, he knows everybody's name and everybody's business ;
distinguishes at first sight between a Cook's tourist and an
independent traveller ; and has discovered that nine-tenths of
those whom he is likely to meet up the river are English or
American. The rest will be mostly German, with a sprinkling
of Belgian and French. So far en bloc ; but the details are
more heterogeneous still. Here are invalids in search of
health ; artists in search of subjects ; sportsmen keen upon
crocodiles ; statesmen out for a holiday ; special correspondents

CAIRO AND THE GREAT PYRAMID.

alert for gossip; collectors on the scent of papyri and mummies;
men of science with only scientific ends in view ; and the
usual surplus of idlers who travel for the mere love of travel,
or the satisfaction of a purposeless curiosity.

Now in a place like Shepheard's, where every fresh arrival
has the honour of contributing, for at least a few minutes, to
the general entertainment, the first appearance of L. and the
Writer, tired, dusty, and considerably sunburnt, may well have
given rise to some of the comments in usual circulation at
those crowded tables. People asked each other, most likely,
where these two wandering Englishwomen had come from ;
why they had not dressed for dinner ; what brought them to
Egypt ; and if they also were going up the Nile — to which
questions it would have been easy to give satisfactory answers.

We came from Alexandria, having had a rough passage from
Brindisi followed by forty-eight hours of quarantine. We had
not dressed for dinner because, having driven on from the
station in advance of dragoman and luggage, we were but just
in time to take seats with the rest. We intended, of course,
to go up the Nile ; and had any one ventured to inquire in so
many words what brought us to Egypt, we should have
replied : — ■' Stress of weather."

Eor in simple truth we had drifted hither by accident, with
no excuse of health, or business, or any serious object what-
ever ; and had just taken refuge in Egypt as one might turn
aside into the Burlington Arcade or the Passage des Panoramas
— to get out of the rain.

And with good reason. Having left home early in Sep-
tember for a few weeks' sketching in central France, we had
been pursued by the wettest of wet weather. Washed out of
the hill-country, we fared no better in the plains. At Nismes,
it poured for a month without stopping. Debating at last
whether it were better to take our v/et umbrellas back at once
to England, or push on farther still in search of sunshine, the
talk fell upon Algiers — Malta — Cairo ; and Cairo carried it.
Never was distant expedition entered upon with less pre-
meditation. The thing was no sooner decided than we were
gone. Nice, Genoa, Bologna, Ancona flitted by, as in a dream ;
and Bedreddin Hassan when he awoke at the gates of

CAIRO AND THE GREAT PYRAMID.

Damascus was scarcely more surprised than the writer of these
pages, when she found herself on board the Simla, and
steaming out of the port of Brindisi.

Here, then, without definite plans, outfit, or any kind of
Oriental experience, behold us arrived in Cairo on the 29th
of November 1873, literally, and most prosaically, in search of
fine weather.

But what had memory to do with rains on land, or storms
at sea, or the impatient hours of quarantine, or anything dismal
or disagreeable, when one awoke at sunrise to see those grey-
green palms outside the window solemnly bowing their plumed
heads towards each other, against a rose-coloured dawn ? It
was dark last night, and I had no idea that my room overlooked
an enchanted garden, far-reaching and solitary, peopled with
stately giants beneath whose tufted crowns hung rich clusters
of maroon and amber dates. It was a still, warm morning.
Grave grey and black crows flew heavily from tree to tree, or
perched, cawing meditatively, upon the topmost branches.
Yonder, between the pillared stems, rose the minaret of a very
distant mosque ; and here where the garden was bounded by
a high wall and a windowless house, I saw a veiled lady walking
on the terraced roof in the midst of a cloud of pigeons.
Nothing could be more simple than the scene and its acces-
sories ; nothing, at the same time, more Eastern, strange, and
unreal.

But in order thoroughly to enjoy an overwhelming, inefface-
able first impression of Oriental out-of-doors life, one should
begin in Cairo with a day in the native bazaars ; neither
buying, nor sketching, nor seeking information, but just taking
in scene after scene, with its manifold combinations of light and
shade, colour, costume, and architectural detail. Every shop-
front, every street corner, every turbaned group is a ready-made
picture. The old Turk who sets up his cake -stall in the
recess of a sculptured doorway ; the donkey-boy with his gaily
caparisoned ass, waiting for customers ; the beggar asleep on
the steps of the mosque ; the veiled woman filling her water
jar at the public fountain — they all look as if they had been
put there expressly to be painted.

Nor is the background less picturesque than the figures.

CAIRO AND THE GREAT PYRAMID.

The houses are high and narrow. The upper stories project ;
and from these again jut windows of deHcate turned lattice-
work in old brown wood, like big bird-cages. The street is
roofed in overhead with long rafters and pieces of matting,

'f^v~'^-'

CAIUO DONKKV

through which a dusty sunbeam straggles here and there, cast-
ing patches of light upon the moving crowd. The unpaved
thoroughfare — a mere narrow lane, full of ruts and watered
profusely twice or thrice a day — is lined with little wooden
shop-fronts, like open cabinets full of shelves, where the
merchants sit cross-legged in the midst of their goods, looking
out at the passers-by and smoking in silence. Meanwhile, the
crowd ebbs and flows unceasingly — a noisy, changing, restless,
parti-coloured tide, half European, half Oriental, on foot, on
horseback, and in carriages. Here are Syrian dragomans in
baggy trousers and braided jackets ; barefooted Egyptian
fellaheen in ragged blue shirts and felt skull-caps ; Greeks in

CAIRO AND THE GREAT PYRAMID. 5

absurdly stiff white tunics, like walking penwipers ; Persians
with high mitre-like caps of dark woven stuff; swarthy Bedouins
in flowing garments, creamy-white with chocolate stripes a foot
wide, and head-shawl of the same bound about the brow with
a fillet of twisted camel's hair ; Englishmen in palm-leaf hats
and knickerbockers, dangling their long legs across almost
invisible donkeys ; native women of the poorer class, in black
veils that leave only the eyes uncovered, and long trailing
garments of dark blue and black striped cotton ; dervishes in
patchwork coats, their matted hair streaming from under
fantastic head-dresses ; blue-black Abyssinians with incredibly
slender, bowed legs, like attenuated ebony balustrades ;
Armenian priests, looking exactly like Portia as the Doctor, in
long black gowns and high square caps ; majestic ghosts of
Algerine Arabs, all in white ; mounted Janissaries with jingling
sabres and gold -embroidered jackets ; merchants, beggars,
soldiers, boatmen, labourers, workmen, in every variety of
costume, and of every shade of complexion from fair to dark,
from tawny to copper-colour, from deepest bronze to bluest
black.

Now a water-carrier goes by, bending under the weight of
his newly-replenished goatskin, the legs of which being tied up,
the neck fitted with a brass cock, and the hair left on, looks
horribly bloated and life-like. Now comes a sweetmeat-vendor
with a tray of that gummy compound known to English
children as "Lumps of Delight"; and now an Egyptian lady
on a large grey donkey led by a servant with a showy sabre
at his side. The lady wears a rose-coloured silk dress and
white veil, besides a black silk outer garment, which, being
cloak, hood, and veil all in one, fills out with the wind as she
rides, like a balloon. She sits astride ; her naked feet, in their
violet velvet slippers, just resting on the stirrups. She takes
care to display a plump brown arm laden with massive gold
bracelets, and, to judge by the way in which she uses a pair of
liquid black eyes, would not be sorry to let her face be seen
also. Nor is the steed less well dressed than his mistress.
His close-shaven legs and hindquarters are painted in blue
and white zigzags picked out with bands of pale yellow ; his
high -pommelled saddle is resplendent with velvet and em-

CAIRO AND THE GREAT PYRAMID.

broidery ; and his headgear is all tags, tassels, and fringes.
Such a donkey as this is worth from sixty to a hundred pounds
sterling. Next passes an open barouche full of laughing
Englishwomen ; or a grave provincial sheykh all in black,
riding a handsome bay Arab, demi-saiig ; or an Egyptian
gentleman in European dress and Turkish fez, driven by an
English groom in an English phaeton. Before him, wand in
hand, bare-legged, eager-eyed, in Greek skull-cap and gorgeous
gold-embroidered waistcoat and fluttering white tunic, flies a
native Sais, or running footman. No person of position
drives in Cairo without one or two of these attendants. The
SaYs (strong, light, and beautiful, like John of Bologna's
Mercury) are said to die young. The pace kills them. Next
passes a lemonade-seller, with his tin jar in one hand, and his
decanter and brass cups in the other ; or an itinerant slipper-
vendor with a bunch of red and yellow morocco shoes dangling
at the end of a long pole; or a London -built miniature
brougham containing two ladies in transparent Turkish veils,
preceded by a Nubian outrider in semi -military livery ; or,
perhaps, a train of camels, ill-tempered and supercilious, craning
their scrannel necks above the crowd, and laden with canvas
bales scrawled over with Arabic addresses.

But the Egyptian, Arab, and Turkish merchants, whether
mingling in the general tide or sitting on their counters, are
the most picturesque personages in all this busy scene. They
wear ample turbans, for the most part white ; long vests of
striped Syrian silk reaching to the feet ; and an outer robe of
braided cloth or cashmere. The vest is confined round the
waist by a rich sash ; and the outer robe, or gib be h^ is generally
of some beautiful degraded colour, such as maize, mulberry,
olive, peach, sea-green, salmon -pink, sienna -brown, and the
like. That these stately beings should vulgarly buy and sell,
instead of reposing all their lives on luxurious divans and
being waited upon by beautiful Circassians, seems altogether
contrary to the eternal fitness of things. Here, for instance, is
a Grand Vizier in a gorgeous white and amber satin vest, who
condescends to retail pipe-bowls, — dull red clay pipe-bowls of
all sizes and prices. He sells nothing else, and has not only a
pile of them on the counter, but a binful at the back of his

TL'NIS MARKET, CAIF.:i

CAIRO AND THE GREAT PYRAMID.

shop. They are made at Siout in Upper Egypt, and may be
bought at the Algerine shops in London almost as cheaply as
in Cairo. Another majestic Pasha deals in brass and copper
vessels, drinking- cups, basins, ewers, trays, incense -burners,
chafing-dishes, and the like ; some of which are exquisitely
engraved with Arabesque patterns or sentences from the poets.
A third sells silks from the looms of Lebanon, and gold and
silver tissues from Damascus. Others, again, sell old arms, old
porcelain, old embroideries, second-hand prayer -carpets, and
quaint little stools and cabinets of ebony inlaid with mother-of-
pearl. Here, too, the tobacco-merchant sits behind a huge
cake of Latakia as big as his own body ; and the sponge-
merchant smokes his long chibouk in a bower of sponges.

Most amusing of all, however, are those bazaars in which
each trade occupies its separate quarter. You pass through an
old stone gateway or down a narrow turning, and find yourself
amid a colony of saddlers stitching, hammering, punching,
riveting. You walk up one alley and down another, between
shop-fronts hung round with tasselled head-gear and hump-
backed saddles of all qualities and colours. Here are ladies'
saddles, military saddles, donkey-saddles, and saddles for great
officers of state ; saddles covered with red leather, with crimson
and violet velvet, with maroon, and grey, and purple cloth ;
saddles embroidered with gold and silver, studded with brass-
headed nails, or trimm.ed with braid.

Another turn or two, and you are in the slipper bazaar,
walking down avenues of red and yellow morocco slippers; the
former of home manufacture, the latter from Tunis. Here are
slippers with pointed toes, turned-up toes, and toes as round
and flat as horse-shoes ; walking slippers with thick soles, and
soft yellow slippers to be worn as inside socks, which have no
soles at all. These absurd little scarlet bluchers with tassels
are for little boys ; the brown morocco shoes are for grooms ;
the velvet slippers embroidered with gold and beads and seed-
pearls are for wealthy hareems, and are sold at prices varying
from five shillings to five pounds the pair.

The carpet bazaar is of considerable extent, and consists of
a network of alleys and counter-alleys opening off to the right
of the Muski, which is the Regent Street of Cairo. The

CAIRO AND THE GREAT PYRAMID.

houses in most of these alleys are rich in antique lattice-windows
and Saracenic doorways. One little square is tapestried all
round with Persian and Syrian rugs, Damascus saddle-bags,
and Turkish prayer-carpets. The merchants sit and smoke in
the midst of their goods ; and up in one corner an old

CARPET BAZAAR, CAIRO.

" Kahwagee," or coffee-seller, plies his humble trade. He has
set up his little stove and hanging-shelf beside the doorway of
a dilapidated Khan, the walls of which are faced with Arabesque
panellings in old carved stone. It is one of the mo.st pictur-
esque "bits" in Cairo. The striped carpets of Tunis ; the dim
grey and blue, or grey and red fabrics of Algiers ; the shaggy

CAIRO AND THE GREAT PYRAMID.

rugs of Laodicea and Smyrna ; the rich blues and greens and
subdued reds of Turkey ; and the wonderfully varied, harmoni-
ous patterns of Persia, have each their local habitation in the
neighbouring alleys. One is never tired of traversing these
half-lighted avenues all aglow with gorgeous colour and peopled
with figures that come and go like the actors in some Christmas
piece of Oriental pageantry.

In the Khan Khaleel, the place of the gold and silversmiths'
bazaar, there is found, on the contrary, scarcely any display of
goods for sale. The alleys are so narrow in this part that two
persons can with difficulty walk in them abreast ; and the
shops, tinier than ever, are mere cupboards with about three
feet of frontage. The back of each cupboard is fitted with tiers
of little drawers and pigeon-holes, and in front is a kind of
matted stone step, called a mastabah, which serves for seat and
counter. The customer sits on the edge of the mastabah ; the
merchant squats, cross-legged, inside. In this position he can,
without rising, take out drawer after drawer ; and thus the
space between the two becomes piled with gold and silver
ornaments. These differ from each other only in the metal,
the patterns being identical ; and they are sold by weight, with
a due margin for profit. In dealing with strangers who do
not understand the Egyptian system of weights, silver articles
are commonly weighed against rupees or five-franc pieces, and
gold articles against napoleons or sovereigns. The ornaments
made in Cairo consist chiefly of chains and earrings, anklets,
bangles, necklaces strung with coins or tusk-shaped pendants,
amulet-cases of filigree or repousse work, and penannular
bracelets of rude execution, but rich and ancient designs. As
for the merchants, their civility and patience are inexhaustible.
One may turn over their whole stock, try on all their bracelets,
go away again and again without buying, and yet be always
welcomed and dismissed with smiles. L. and the Writer spent
many an hour practising Arabic in the Khan Khaleel, without,
it is to be feared, a corresponding degree of benefit to the mer-
chants.

There are many other special bazaars in Cairo, as the Sweet-
meat Bazaar ; the Hardware Bazaar ; the Tobacco Bazaar ; the
Sword -mounters' and Coppersmiths' Bazaars ; the Moorish

CAIRO AND THE GREAT PYRAMID.

Bazaar, where fez caps, burnouses, and Barbary goods are
sold ; and some extensive bazaars for the sale of English and
French muslins, and Manchester cotton goods ; but these last
are, for the most part, of inferior interest. Among certain
fabrics manufactured in England expressly for the Eastern
market, we observed a most hideous printed muslin represent-
ing small black devils capering over a yellow ground, and we
learned that it was much in favour for children's dresses.

But the bazaars, however picturesque, are far from being the
only sights of Cairo. There are mosques in plenty ; grand old
Saracenic gates ; ancient Coptic churches ; the museum of
Egyptian antiquities ; and, within driving distance, the tombs
of the Caliphs, Heliopolis, the Pyramids, and the Sphinx. To
remember in what order the present travellers saw these things
would now be impossible ; for they lived in a dream, and were
at first too bewildered to catalogue their impressions very
methodically. Some places they were for the present obliged
to dismiss with only a passing glance ; others had to be wholly
deferred till their return to Cairo.

In the meanwhile, our first business was to look at daha-
beeyahs ; and the looking at dahabeeyahs compelled us con-
stantly to turn our steps and our thoughts in the direction of
Boulak — a desolate place by the river, where some two or three
hundred Nile-boats lay moored for hire. Now, most persons
know something of the miseries of house-hunting ; but only
those who have experienced them know how much keener are
the miseries of dahabeeyah-hunting. It is more bewildering
and more fatiguing, and is beset by its own special and peculiar
difficulties. The boats, in the first place, are all built on the
same plan, which is not the case with houses ; and except as
they run bigger or smaller, cleaner or dirtier, are as like each
other as twin oysters. The same may be said of their captains,
with the same differences ; for to a person who has been only
a i^^ days in Egypt, one black or copper-coloured man is
exactly like every other black or copper-coloured man. Then
each Reis, or captain, displays the certificates given to him by
former travellers ; and these certificates, being apparently in
active circulation, have a mysterious way of turning up again
and aeain on board different boats and in the hands of differ-

12 CAIRO AND THE GREAT PYRAMID.

ent claimants. Nor is this all. Dahabeeyahs are given to
changing their places, which houses do not do ; so that the
boat which lay yesterday alongside the eastern bank may be
over at the western bank to-day, or hidden in the midst of a
dozen others half a mile lower down the river. All this is very
perplexing ; yet it is as nothing compared with the state of
confusion one gets into when attempting to weigh the advan-
tages or disadvantages of boats with six cabins and boats with
eight ; boats provided with canteen, and boats without ; boats
that can pass the cataract, and boats that can't ; boats that are
only twice as dear as they ought to be, and boats with that
defect jfive or six times multiplied. Their names, again — •
Ghazal, Sarawa, Fostat, Dongola, — unlike any names one has
ever heard before, afford as yet no kind of help to the memory.
Neither do the names of their captains ; for they are all
Mohammeds or Hassans. Neither do their prices ; for they
vary from day to day, according to the state of the market as
shown by the returns of arrivals at the principal hotels.

Add to all this the fact that no Reis speaks anything but
Arabic, and that every word of inquiry or negotiation has to
be filtered, more or less inaccurately, through a dragoman, and
then perhaps those who have not yet tried this variety of the
pleasures of the chase may be able to form some notion of the
weary, hopeless, puzzling work which lies before the dahabeeyah
hunter in Cairo.

Thus it came to pass that, for the first ten days or so, some
three or four hours had to be devoted every morning to the
business of the boats ; at the end of which time we were no
nearer a conclusion than at first. The small boats were too
small for either comfort or safety, especially in what Nile-
travellers call " a big wind." The medium-sized boats (which
lie under the suspicion of being used in summer for the trans-
port of cargo) were for the most part of doubtful cleanliness.
The largest boats, which alone seemed unexceptionable, con-
tained from eight to ten cabins, besides two saloons, and
were obviously too large for a party consisting of only L.,
the Writer, and a maid. And all were exorbitantly dear.
Encompassed by these manifold difficulties ; listening now to
this and now to that person's opinion ; deliberating, haggling,

CAIRO AND THE GREAT PYRAMID. 13

comparing, hesitating, we vibrated daily between Boulak and
Cairo, and led a miserable life. Meanwhile, however, we met
some former acquaintances ; made some new ones ; and when
not too tired or down-hearted, saw what we could of the sights
of Cairo — which helped a little to soften the asperities of
our lot.

One of our first excursions was, of course, to the Pyramids,
which lie within an hour and a half's easy drive from the
hotel door. We started immediately after an early luncheon,
followed an excellent road all the way, and were back in time
for dinner at half-past six. But it must be understood that we
did not go to see the Pyramids. We went only to look at
them. Later on (having meanwhile been up the Nile and
back, and gone through months of training), we came again,
not only with due leisure, but also with some practical under-
standing of the manifold phases through which the arts and
architecture of Egypt had passed since those far-off days of
Cheops and Chephren. Then, only, we can be said to have
seen the Pyramids ; and till we arrive at that stage of our
pilgrimage, it will be well to defer everything like a detailed
account of them or their surroundings. Of this first brief visit,
enough therefore a brief record.

The first glimpse that most travellers now get of the
Pyramids is from the window of the railway carriage as they
come from Alexandria ; and it is not impressive. It does not
take one's breath away, for instance, like a first sight of the
Alps from the high level of the Neufchatel line, or the outline
of the Acropolis at Athens as one first recognises it from the
sea. The well-known triangular forms look small and shadowy,
and are too familiar to be in any way startling. And the same,
I think, is true of every distant view of them, — that is, of every
view which is too distant to afford the means of scaling them
against other objects. It is only in approaching them, and
observing how they grow with every foot of the road, that one
begins to feel they are not so familiar after all.

But when at last the edge of the desert is reached, and the
iong sand-slope climbed, and the rocky platform gained, and
the Great Pyramid in all its unexpected bulk and majesty
towers close above one's head, the effect is as sudden as it is

14 CAIRO AND THE GREAT PYRAMID.

overwhelming. It shuts out the sky and the horizon. It shuts
out all the other Pyramids. It shuts out everything but the
sense of awe and wonder.

Now, too, one discovers that it was with the forms of the
Pyramids, and only their forms, that one had been acquainted
all these years past. Of their surface, their colour, their
relative position, their number (to say nothing of their size),
one had hitherto entertained no kind of definite idea. The
most careful study of plans and measurements, the clearest
photographs, the most elaborate descriptions, had done little or
nothing, after all, to make one know the place beforehand.
This undulating table- land of sand and rock, pitted with open
graves and cumbered with mounds of shapeless masonry, is
wholly unlike the desert of our dreams. The Pyramids of
Cheops and Chephren are bigger than we had expected ;
the Pyramid of Mycerinus is smaller. Here, too, are nine
Pyramids, instead of three. They are all entered in the plans
and mentioned in the guide-books ; but, somehow, one is un-
prepared to find them there, and cannot help looking upon
them as intruders. These six extra Pyramids are small and
greatly dilapidated. One, indeed, is little more than a big
cairn.

Even the Great Pyramid puzzles us with an unexpected
sense of unlikeness. We all know, and have known from
childhood, that it was stripped of its outer blocks some five
hundred years ago to build Arab mosques and palaces ; but
the rugged, rock-like aspect of that giant staircase takes us by
surprise, nevertheless. Nor does it look like a partial ruin,
cither. It looks as if it had been left unfinished, and as if the
workmen might be coming back to-morrow morning.

The colour again is a surprise. Few persons can be
aware beforehand of the rich tawny hue that Egyptian lime-
stone assumes after ages of exposure to the blaze of an Egyptian
sky. Seen in certain lights, the Pyramids look like piles of
massy gold.

Having but one hour and forty minutes to spend on the
spot, we resolutely refused on this first occasion to be shown
anything, or told anything, or to be taken anywhere, — except,
indeed, for a few minutes to the brink of the sand -hollow in

CAIRO AM) THE GREAT PYRAMID. ic

which the Sphinx lies couchant. We wished to give our whole
attention, and all the short time at our disposal, to the Great
Pyramid only. To gain some impression of the outer aspect
and size of this enormous structure, — to steady our minds to
something like an understanding of its age, — was enough, and
more than enough, for so brief a visit.

For it is no easy task to realise, however imperfectly, the
duration of six or seven thousand years ; and the Great Pyramid,
which is supposed to have been some four thousand two hundred
and odd years old at the time of the birth of Christ, is now in
its seventh millennary. Standing there close against the
base of it ; touching it ; measuring her own height against one
of its lowest blocks ; looking up all the stages of that vast,
receding, rugged wall, which leads upward like an Alpine
buttress and seems almost to touch the sky, the Writer
suddenly became aware that these remote dates had never
presented themselves to her mind until this mopient as any-
thing but abstract numerals. Now, for the first time, they
resolved themselves into something concrete, definite, real.
They were no longer figures, but years with their changes of
season, their high and low Niles, their seed-times and harvests.
The consciousness of that moment will never, perhaps, quite
wear away. It was as if one had been snatched up for an
instant to some vast height overlooking the plains of Time,
and had seen the centuries mapped out beneath one's feet.

To appreciate the size of the Great Pyramid is less difficult
than to apprehend its age. No one who has walked the length
of one side, climbed to the top, and learned the dimensions
from Murray, can fail to form a tolerably clear idea of its mere
bulk. The measurements given by Sir Gardner Wilkinson are
as follows: — length of each side, 732 feet; perpendicular
height, 480 feet 9 inches; area 535,824 square feet.^ That
is to say, it stands 1 1 5 feet 9 inches higher than the cross on
the top of St. Paul's, and about 20 feet lower than Box Hill
in Surrey; and if transported bodily to London, it would a little

1 Since the first edition of this book was issued, the pubHcation of Mr,
W. M. Fhnders Petrie's standard work, entitled The Pyramids and Temples
of Gizeh, has for the first time placed a thoroughly accurate and scientific
description of the Great Pyramid at the disposal of students. Calculating

CAIRO AND THE GREAT PYRAMID.

more than cover the whole area ot" Lincoln's Ii n Fields.
These are sufficiently matter-of-fact statements, and sufficiently
intelligible ; but, like most calculations of the kind, they
diminish rather than do justice to the dignity of the subject.

More impressive by far than the weightiest array of figures
or the most striking comparisons, was the shadow cast by the
Great Pyramid as the sun went down. That mighty Shadow,
sharp and distinct, stretched across the stony platform of the
desert and over full three-quarters of a mile of the green plain
below. It divided the sunlight where it fell, just as its great
original divided the sunlight in the upper air ; and it darkened
the space it covered, like an eclipse. It was not without a
thrill of something approaching to awe that one remembered
how this self-same Shadow had gone on registering, not only
the height of the most stupendous gnomon ever set up by
human hands, but the slow passage, day by day, of more than
sixty centuries of the world's history.

It was still lengthening over the landscape as we went
down the long sand-slope and regained the carriage. Some
six or eight Arabs in fluttering white garments ran on ahead
to bid us a last good-bye. That we should have driven over
from Cairo only to sit quietly down and look at the Great
Pyramid had filled them with unfeigned astonishment. With

from the rock-cut sockets at the four corners, and from the true level of the
pavement, Mr. Petrie finds that the square of the original base of the
structure, in inches, is of these dimensions : —

Length.

Difference
from Mean.

Azimuth.

Difference
from Mean.

N
E
S

9069-4
90677
9069-5
9068-6

+ -6
- i-i

+ 7

- 3' 20"

- 3' 57"

- 3' 41"

- 3' 54"

+ 23"

- 14"
+ 2"

- 11"

Mean

9068-8

•65

- 3' 43"

12"

For the height, Mr. Petrie, after duly weighing all data, such as the
thickness of the three casing-stones yet in situ, and the presumed thick-
ness of those which formerly faced the upper courses of the masonry, gives
from his observations of the mean angle of the Pyramid, a height from
base to apex of 5776-0+ 7-0 inches. See The Pyramids a?id Temples oj
Giseh, chap. vi. pp. 37 to 43. [Note to the Second Edition].

CAIRO AND THE GREAT PYRAMID. 17

such energy and despatch as the modern traveller uses, we
might have been to the top, and seen the temple of the
Sphinx, and done two or three of the principal tombs in the
time,

" You come again ! " said they. " Good Arab show you
everything. You see nothing this time ! "

So, promising to return ere long, we drove away ; well
content, nevertheless, with the way in which our time had
been spent.

The Pyramid Bedouins have been plentifully abused by
travellers and guide-books, but we found no reason to complain
of them now or afterwards. They neither crowded round us,
nor followed us, nor importuned us in any way. They are
naturally vivacious and very talkative ; yet the gentle fellows
were dumb as mutes when they found we wished for silence.
And they were satisfied with a very moderate bakhshish at
parting.

As a fitting sequel to this excursion, we went, I think
next day, to see the mosque of Sultan* Hassan, which is one of
those mediaeval structures said to have been built with the
casing-stones of the Great Pyramid.

CHAPTER 11,

CAIRO AND THE MECCA PILGRIMAGK.

1 HE mosque of Sultan Hassan, confessedly the most beautiful
in Cairo, is also perhaps the most beautiful in the Moslem
world. It was built at just that happy moment when Arabian
art in Egypt, having -ceased merely to appropriate or imitate,
had at length evolved an original architectural style out of the
heterogeneous elements of Roman and early Christian edifices.
The mosques of a few centuries earlier (as, for instance, that of
Tuhin, which marks the first departure from the old Byzantine
model) consisted of little more than a courtyard with colon-
nades leading to a hall supported on a forest of pillars. A
little more than a century later, and the national style had
already experienced the beginnings of that prolonged eclipse
which finally resulted in the bastard Neo-Byzantine Renaissance
represented by the mosque of Mehemet AH. But the mosque
of Sultan Hassan, built ninety-seven years before the taking of
Constantinople, may justly be regarded as the highest point
reached by Saracenic art in Egypt after it had used up the
Greek and Roman material of Memphis, and before its new-
born originality became modified by influences from beyond
the Bosphorus. Its pre-eminence is due neither to the great-
ness of its dimensions nor to the splendour of its materials.
It is neither so large as the great mosque at Damascus, nor so
rich in costly marbles as Saint Sophia in Constantinople ; but
in design, proportion, and a certain lofty grace impossible to
describe, it surpasses these, and every other mosque, whether
original or adapted, with which the writer is acquainted.

CAIRO AND THE MECCA PILGRIMAGE. ig

The whole structure is purely national. Every line and
curve in it, and every inch of detail, is in the best style of the
best period of the Arabian school. And above all, it was de-
signed expressly for its present purpose. The two famous
mosques of Damascus and Constantinople having, on the con-
trary, been Christian churches, betray evidences of adaptation.
In Saint Sophia, the space once occupied by the figure of the
Redeemer may be distinctly traced in the mosaic-work of the
apse, filled in with gold tesserae of later date ; while the magnifi-
cent gates of the great mosque at Damascus are decorated, among
other Christian emblems, with the sacramental chalice. But the
mosque of Sultan Hassan, built by En Nasir Hassan in the high
and palmy days of the Memlook rule, is marred by no discrep-
ancies. For a mosque it was designed, and a mosque it remains.
Too soon it will be only a beautiful ruin.

A number of small streets having lately been demolished
in this quarter, the approach to the mosque lies across a
desolate open space littered with debris, but destined to. be
laid out as a public square. With this desirable end in view,
some half dozen workmen were lazily loading as many camels
with rubble, which is the Arab way of carting rubbish. If
they persevere, and the Minister of Public Works continues to
pay their wages with due punctuality, the ground will perhaps
get cleared in eight or ten years' time.

Driving up with some difficulty to the foot of the great
steps, which were crowded with idlers smoking and sleeping,
we observed a long and apparently fast -widening fissure
reaching nearly from top to bottom of the main wall of the
building, close against the minaret. It looked like just such a
rent as might be caused by a shock of earthquake, and, being
still new to the East, we wondered the Government had
not set to work to mend it. We had yet to learn that
nothing is ever mended in Cairo. Here, as in Constantinople,
new buildings spring up apace, but the old, no matter how
venerable, are allowed to moulder away, inch by inch, till
nothing remains but a heap of ruins.

Going up the steps and through a lofty hall, up some more
steps and along a gloomy corridor, we came to the great court,
before entering which, however, we had to take off" our boots

^o CAIRO AND THE MECCA PILGRIMAGE.

and put on slippers brought for the purpose. The first sight
of this court is an architectural surprise. It is like nothing
one has seen before, and its beauty equals its novelty.
Imagine an immense marble quadrangle, open to the sky and
enclosed within lofty walls, with, at each side, a vast recess
framed in by a single arch. The quadrangle is more than lOO
feet square, and the walls are more than loo feet high. Each
recess forms a spacious hall for rest and prayer, and all are
matted ; but that at the eastern end is wider and considerably
deeper than the other three, and the noble arch that encloses it
like the proscenium of a splendid stage, measures, according to
Fergusson, 69 feet 5 inches in the span. It looks much
larger. This principal hall, the floor of which is raised one
step at the upper end, measures 90 feet in depth and 90 in
height. The dais is covered with prayer-rugs, and contains
the holy niche and the pulpit of the preacher. We observed
that those who came up here came only to pray. Having
prayed, they either went away or turned aside into one of the
other recesses to rest. There was a charming fountain in the
court, with a dome-roof as light and fragile-looking as a big
bubble, at which each worshipper performed his ablutions on
coming in. This done, he left his slippers on the matting and
trod the carpeted dais barefoot.

This was the first time we had seen Moslems at prayer,
and we could not but be impressed by their profound and
unaffected devotion. Some lay prostrate, their foreheads
touching the ground ; others were kneeling ; others bowing in
the prescribed attitudes of prayer. So absorbed were they,
that not even our unhallowed presence seemed to disturb them.
We did not then know that the pious Moslem is as devout out
of the mosque as in it ; or that it is his habit to pray when
the appointed hours come round, no matter where he may be,
or how occupied. We soon became so familiar, however, with
this obvious trait of Mohammedan life, that it seemed quite a
matter of course that the camel-driver should dismount and
lay his forehead in the dust by the roadside ; or the merchant
spread his prayer-carpet on the narrow mastabah of his little
shop in the public bazaar ; or the boatman prostrate himself
with his face to the east, as the =un went down behind the
hills of the Libyan desert

CAIRO AND THE MECCA PILGRIMAGE. 21

While we were admiring the spring of the roof and the
intricate Arabesque decorations of the pulpit, a custode came
up with a big key and invited us to visit the tomb of the
founder. So we followed him into an enormous vaulted hall
a hundred feet square, in the centre of which stood a plain,
railed-off tomb, with an empty iron-bound coffer at the foot.
We afterwards learned that for five hundred years — that is to
say, ever since the death and burial of Sultan Hassan — this
coffer had contained a fine copy of the Koran, traditionally
said to have been written by Sultan Hassan's own hand ; but
that the Khedive, who is collecting choice and antique Arabic
MSS., had only the other day sent an order for its removal.

Nothing can be bolder or more elegant than the propor-
tions of this noble sepulchral hall, the walls of which are
covered with tracery in low relief incrusted with discs and
tesserae of turquoise-coloured porcelain ; while high up, in
order to lead off the vaulting of the roof, the corners are
rounded by means of recessed clusters of exquisite Arabesque
woodwork, like pendent stalactites. But the tesserae are fast
falling out, and most of their places are vacant ; and the
beautiful woodwork hangs in fragments, tattered and cob-
webbed, like time-worn banners which the first touch of a brush
would bring down.

Going back again from the tomb to the courtyard, we
everywhere observed traces of the same dilapidation. The
fountain, once a miracle of Saracenic ornament, was fast going
to destruction. The rich marbles of its basement were cracked
and discoloured, its stuccoed cupola was flaking off piecemeal,
its enamels were dropping out, its lace -like wood tracery
shredding away by inches.

Presently a tiny brown and golden bird perched with pretty
confidence on the brink of the basin, and having splashed,
and drunk, and preened its feathers like a true believer at his
ablutions, flew up to the top of the cupola and sang deliciously.
All else was profoundly still. Large spaces of light and
shadow divided the quadrangle. The sky showed overhead as
a square opening of burning solid blue ; while here and there,
reclining, praying, or quietly occupied, a number of turbaned
figures were picturesquely scattered over the matted floors of

22 CAIRO AND THE MECCA PILGRIMAGE.

the open halls around. Yonder sat a tailor cross-legged,
making a waistcoat ; near him, stretched on his face at full
length, sprawled a basket-maker with his half-woven basket
and bundle of rushes beside him ; and here, close against the
main entrance, lay a blind man and his dog ; the master asleep,
the dog keeping watch. It was, as I have said, our first
mosque, and I well remember the surprise with which we saw
that tailor sewing on his buttons, and the sleepers lying about
in the shade. We did not then know that a Mohammedan
mosque is as much a place of rest and refuge as of prayer ; or
that the houseless Arab may take shelter there by night or day
as freely as the birds may build their nests in the cornice, or
as the blind man's dog may share the cool shade with his
sleeping master.

From the mosque of this Memlook sovereign it is but a
few minutes' uphill drive to the mosque of Mehemet Ali, by
whose orders the last of that royal race were massacred just
sixty-four years ago.^ This mosque, built within the precincts
of the citadel on a spur of the Mokattam Hills overlooking
the city, is the most conspicuous object in Cairo. Its attenu-
uated minarets and clustered domes show from every point of
view for miles around, and remain longer in sight, as one
leaves, or returns to, Cairo, than any other landmark. It is
a spacious, costly, gaudy, commonplace building, with nothing
really beautiful about it, except the great marble courtyard
and fountain. The inside, which is entirely built of Oriental
alabaster, is carpeted with magnificent Turkey carpets and
hung with innumerable cut-glass chandeliers, so that it looks
like a huge vulgar drawing-room from which the furniture has
been cleared out for dancing.

The view from the outer platform is, however, magnificent.
We saw it on a hazy day, and could not therefore distinguish
the point of the Delta, which ought to have been visible on the
north ; but we could plainly see as far southward as the
Pyramids of Sakkarah, and trace the windings of the Nile for
many miles across the plain. The Pyramids of Ghizeh, on
their dais of desert rock about twelve miles off, looked, as they

1 Now, seventy-seven years ago ; the first Edition of this book having
been published thirteen years ago. [Note to Second Edition.]

CAiko AND THE Mecca ptLGRtMAcE. 13

always do look from a distance, small and unimpressive ; but
the great alluvial valley dotted over with mud villages and
intersected by canals and tracts of palm forest ; the shining
river specked with sails ; and the wonderful city, all flat roofs,
cupolas, and minarets, spread out like an intricate model at
one's feet, were full of interest and absorbed our whole atten-
tion. Looking down upon it from this elevation, it is as easy
to believe that Cairo contains four hundred mosques, as it is to
stand on the brow of the Pincio and believe in the three
hundred and sixty-five churches of modern Rome.

As we came away, they showed us the place in which the
Memlook nobles, four hundred and seventy ^ in number, were
shot down like mad dogs in a trap, that fatal first of March
A.D. 181 1. We saw the upper gate which was shut behind
them as they came out from the presence of the Pasha, and the
lower gate which was shut before them to prevent their egress.
The walls of the narrow roadway in which the slaughter was
done are said to be pitted with bullet-marks ; but we would
not look for them.

I have already said that I do not very distinctly remember
the order of our sight-seeing in Cairo, for the reason that we
saw some places before we went up the river, some after we
came back, and some (as for instance the Museum at Boulak)
both before and after, and indeed as often as possible. But I
am at least quite certain that we witnessed a performance
of howling dervishes, and the departure of the caravan for
Mecca, before starting.

Of all the things that people do by way of pleasure, the
pursuit of a procession is surely one of the most wearisome.
They generally go a long way to see it ; they wait a weary
time ; it is always late ; and when at length it does come, it is
over in a few minutes. The present pageant fulfilled all these
conditions in a superlative degree. We breakfasted uncomfort-
ably early, started soon after half-past seven, and had taken up

1 One only is said to have escaped — a certain Emin Bey, who leaped
his horse over a gap in the wall, alighted safely in the piazza below, and
galloped away into the desert. The place of this famous leap continued
to be shown for many years, but there are no gaps in the wall now, the
citadel being the only place in Cairo which is kept in thorough repair.

24 CAIRO AND THE MECCA PILGRIMAGE.

our position outside the Bab en-Nasr, on the way to the desert,
by half-past eight. Here we sat for nearly three hours, exposed
to clouds of dust and a burning sun, with nothing to do but to
watch the crowd and wait patiently. All Shepheard's Hotel
was there, and every stranger in Cairo ; and we all had smart
open carriages drawn by miserable screws and driven by bare-
legged Arabs. These Arabs, by the way, are excellent whips,
and the screws get along wonderfully ; but it seems odd at
first, and not a little humiliating, to be whirled along behind a
coachman whose only livery consists of a rag of dirty white
turban, a scant tunic just reaching to his knees, and the top-
boots with which Nature has provided him.

Here, outside the walls, the crowd increased momentarily.
The place was like a fair with provision-stalls, swings, story-
tellers, serpent-charmers, cake-sellers, sweetmeat-sellers, sellers
of sherbet, water, lemonade, sugared nuts, fresh dates, hard-
boiled eggs, oranges, and sliced water-melon. Veiled women
carrying little bronze Cupids of children astride upon the right
shoulder, swarthy Egyptians, coal-black Abyssinians, Arabs and
Nubians of every shade from golden-brown to chocolate, fellahs,
dervishes, donkey-boys, street urchins, and beggars with every
imaginable deformity, came and went ; squeezed themselves in
and out among the carriages ; lined the road on each side of
the great towered gateway ; swarmed on the top of every wall ;
and filled the air with laughter, a Babel of dialects, and those
odours of Araby that are inseparable from an Eastern crowd.
A harmless, unsavoury, good-humoured, inoffensive throng, one
glance at which was enough to put to flight all one's precon-
ceived notions about Oriental gravity of demeanour ! For the
truth is that gravity is by no means an Oriental characteristic.
Take a Mohammedan at his devotions, and he is a model of
religious abstraction ; bargain with him for a carpet, and he is
as impenetrable as a judge ; but see him in his hours of relaxa-
tion, or on the occasion of a public holiday, and he is as gar-
rulous and full of laughter as a big child. Like a child, too,
he loves noise and movement for the mere sake of noise and
movement, and looks upon swings and fireworks as the height
of human felicity. Now swings and fireworks are Arabic for
bread and circuses, and our pleb's passion for them is insatiable.

CAIRO A AW THE MECCA PILGRIMAGE. 2$

He not only indulges in them upon every occasion of public
rejoicing, but calls in their aid to celebrate the most solemn
festivals of his religion. It so happened that we afterwards
came in the way of several Mohammedan festivals both in
Egypt and Syria, and we invariably found the swings at work
all day and the fireworks going off every evening.

To-day, the swings outside the Bab en-Nasr were never idle.
Here were creaking Russian swings hung with little painted
cliariots for the children ; and plain rope swings, some of them
as high as Haman's gallows, for the men. For my own part, I
know no sight much more comic and incongruous than the
serene enjoyment with which a bearded, turbaned, middle-aged
Egyptian squats upon his heels on the tiny wooden seat of one
of these enormous swings, and, holding on to the side-ropes for
dear life, goes careering up forty feet high into the air at every
turn.

At a little before midday, when the heat and glare were
becoming intolerable, the swings suddenly ceased going, the
crowd surged in the direction of the gate, and a distant drum-
ming announced the approach of the procession. First came a
string of baggage-camels laden with tent-furniture ; then some
two hundred pilgrims on foot, chanting passages from the
Koran ; then a regiment of Egyptian infantry, the men in a
coarse white linen uniform consisting of coat, baggy trousers
and gaiters, with cross-belts and cartouche-boxes of plain black
leather, and the red fez, or tarboosh, on the head. Next after
these came more pilgrims, followed by a body of dervishes
carrying green banners embroidered with Arabic sentences in
white and yellow ; then a native cavalry regiment headed by
a general and four colonels in magnificent gold embroidery and
preceded by an excellent military band ; then another band
and a second regiment of infantry ; then more colonels, followed
by a regiment of lancers mounted on capital grey horses and
carrying lances topped with small red and green pennants.
After these had gone by there was a long stoppage, and then,
with endless breaks and interruptions, came a straggling
irregular crowd of pilgrims, chiefly of the fellah class, beating
small darabukkehs, or native drums. Those about us estimated
their number at two thousand. And now, their guttural chorus

26 CAIRO AND THE MECCA PILGRIMAGE.

audible long before they arrived in sight, came the howling
dervishes — a ragged, wild-looking, ruffianly set, rolling their
heads from side to side, and keeping up a hoarse incessant cry
of "Allah! Allah! Allah!" Of these there may have been a
couple of hundred. The sheykhs of the principal orders of
dervishes came next in order, superbly dressed in robes of
brilliant colours embroidered with gold, and mounted on magni-
ficent Arabs. Finest of all, in a green turban and scarlet
mantle, rode the Sheykh of the Hasaneyn, who is a descendant
of the Prophet ; but the most important, the Sheykh el Bekree,
who is a sort of Egyptian Archbishop of Canterbury and head
of all the dervishes, came last, riding a white Arab with gold-
embroidered housings. He was a placid-looking old man, and
wore a violet robe and an enormous red and green turban.

This very reverend personage was closely followed by the
chief of the carpet -makers' guild — a handsome man sitting
sidewise on a camel.

Then happened another break in the procession — an eager
pause — a gathering murmur. And then, riding a gaunt
dromedary at a rapid trot, his fat sides shaking, and his head
rolling in a stupid drunken way at every step, appeared a
bloated, half-naked Silenus, with long fuzzy black locks and a
triple chin, and no other clothing than a pair of short white
drawers and red slippers. A shiver of delight ran through the
crowd at sight of this holy man — the famous Sheykh of the
Camel (Sheykh el-Gemel), the " great, good Priest " — the idol
of the people. We afterwards learned that this was his
twentieth pilgrimage, and that he was supposed to fast, roll his
head, and wear nothing but this pair of loose drawers, all the
way to and from Mecca.

But the crowning excitement was yet to come, and the
rapture with which the crowd had greeted the Sheykh el-Gemel
was as nothing compared with their ecstasy when the Mahmal,
preceded by another group of mounted officers and borne by a
gigantic camel, was seen coming through the gateway. The
women held up their children ; the men swarmed up the
scaffoldings of the swings and behind the carriages. They
screamed ; they shouted ; they waved handkerchiefs and tur-
bans ; they were beside themselves with excitement. Mean-

CAIRO AND THE MECCA PILGRIMAGE. 27

while the camel, as if conscious of the dignity of his position
and the splendour of his trappings, came on slowly and
ponderously with his nose in the air, and passed close before
our horses' heads. We could not possibly have had a better
view of the Mahmal ; which is nothing but a sort of cage, or
pagoda, of gilded tracery very richly decorated. In the days
of the Memlooks, the Mahmal represented the litter of the
Sultan, and went empty, like a royal carriage at a public
funeral ;^ but we were told that it now carried the tribute-
carpet sent annually by the carpet -makers of Cairo to the
tomb of the Prophet.

This closed the procession. As the camel passed, the
crowd surged in, and everything like order was at an end.
The carriages all made at once for the Gate, so meeting the
full tide of the outpouring crowd and causing unimaginable
confusion. Some stuck in the sand half-way — our own among
the number ; and all got into an inextricable block in the
narrow part just inside the gate. Hereupon the drivers abused
each other, and the crowd got impatient, and some Europeans
got pelted.

Coming back, we met two or three more regiments. The
men, both horse and foot, seemed fair average specimens, and
creditably disciplined. They rode better than they marched,
which was to be expected. The uniform is the same for
cavalry and infantry throughout the service ; the only difference
being that the former wear short black riding boots, and the
latter. Zouave gaiters of white linen. They are officered up to

1 " It is related that the Sultan Ez-Zahir Beybars, King of Egypt, was
the fiist who sent a Mahmal with the caravan of pilgrims to Mecca, in the
year of the Flight 670 (a.d. 1272) or 675 ; but this custom, it is generally
said, had its origin a few years before his accession to the throne. Sheger-
ed-Durr, a beautiful Turkish female slave, who became the favourite wife
of the Sultan Es-S^leh Negm-ed-Deen, and on the death of his son (with
whom terminated the dynasty of the house of the Eiyoob) caused herself to be
acknowledged as Queen of Egypt, performed the pilgrimage in a magnificent
' hodag,' or covered litter, borne by a camel ; and for several successive
years her empty ' hodag ' was sent with the caravan, merely for the sake
of state. Hence, succeeding princes of Egypt sent with each year's caravan
of pilgrims a kind of ' hodag ' (which received the name of Mahmal) as an
emblem of royalty." — The Modern Egyptians, by E. W. Lane, chap. xxiv.
London, i860.

28 CAIRO AND THE MECCA PILGRIMAGE.

a certain point by Egyptians ; but the commanding officers
and the staff (among whom are enough colonels and generals
to form an ordinary regiment) are chiefly Europeans and
Americans.

It had seemed, while the procession was passing, that the
proportion of pilgrims was absurdly small when compared with
the display of military ; but this, which is called the departure
of the caravan, is in truth only the procession of the sacred
carpet from Cairo to the camp outside the walls ; and the
troops are present merely as part of the pageant. The true
departure takes place two days later. The pilgrims then
muster in great numbers ; but the soldiery is reduced to a
small escort. It was said that seven thousand souls went out
this year from Cairo and its neighbourhood.

The procession took place on Thursday the 2 1st day of
the Mohammedan month of Showwal, which was our iith of
December. The next day, Friday, being the Mohammedan
Sabbath, we went to the Convent of the Howling Dervishes,
which lies beyond the walls in a quiet nook between the river-
side and the part known as Old Cairo.

We arrived a little after two, and passing through a court-
yard shaded by a great sycamore, were ushered into a large,
square, whitewashed hall with a dome-roof and a neatly-matted
floor. The place in its arrangements resembled none of the
mosques that we had yet seen. There was, indeed, nothing to
arrange — no pulpit, no holy niche, no lamps, no prayer-carpets ;
nothing but a row of cane-bottomed chairs at one end, some of
which were already occupied by certain of our fellow-guests at
Shepheard's Hotel. A party of some forty or fifty wild-looking
dervishes were squatting in a circle at the opposite side of the
hall, their outer kuftans and queer pyramidal hats lying in a
heap close by.

Being accommodated with chairs among the other spectators,
we waited for whatever might happen. More dervishes and
more English dropped in from time to time. The new
dervishes took off their caps and sat down among the rest,
laughing and talking together at their ease. The English sat
in a row, shy, uncomfortable, and silent ; wondering whether
they ought to behave as if they were in church, and mortally

CAIRO AND THE MECCA PILGRIMAGE. 29

ashamed of their feet For we had all been obliged to take
off or cover our boots before going in, and those who had
forgotten to bring slippers had their feet tied . up in pocket-
handkerchiefs.

A long time went by thus. At last, when the number of
dervishes had increased to about seventy, and every one was
tired of waiting, eight musicians came in — two trumpets, two
lutes, a cocoa-nut fiddle, a tambourine, and two drums. Then
the dervishes, some of whom were old and white-haired and
some mere boys, formed themselves into a great circle, shoulder
to shoulder ; the band struck up a plaintive, discordant air ;
and a grave middle-aged man, placing himself in the centre of
the ring, and inclining his head at each repetition, began to
recite the name of Allah.

Softly at first, and one by one, the dervishes took up the
chant : — " Allah ! Allah ! Allah !" Their heads and their voices
rose and fell in unison. The dome above gave back a hollow
echo. There was something strange and solemn in the
ceremony.

Presently, however, the trumpets brayed louder — the voices
grew hoarser — the heads bowed lower — the name of Allah
rang out faster and faster, fiercer and fiercer. The leader,
himself cool and collected, began sensibly accelerating the time
of the chorus ; and it became evident that the performers were
possessed by a growing frenzy. Soon the whole circle was
madly rocking to and fro ; the voices rose to a hoarse scream ;
and only the trumpets were audible above the din. Now and
then a dervish would spring up convulsively some three or
four feet above the heads of the others ; but for the most part
they stood rooted firmly to one spot — now bowing their heads
almost to their feet — now flinging themselves so violently back,
that we, standing behind, could see their faces foreshortened
upside down ; and this with such incredible rapidity, that their
long hair had scarcely time either to rise or fall, but remained
as if suspended in mid-air. Still the frenzy mounted ; still the
pace quickened. Some shrieked — some groaned — some, unable
to support themselves any longer, were held up in their places
by the bystanders. All were mad for the time being. Our
own heads seemed to be going round at last ; and more than

30 CAIRO AND THE MECCA PILGRIMAGE.

one of the ladies present looked longingly towards the door.
It was, in truth, a horrible sight, and needed only darkness and
torchlight to be quite diabolical.

At length, just as the fury was at its height and the very
building seemed to be rocking to and fro above our heads, one
poor wretch staggered out of the circle and fell writhing and
shrieking close against our feet. At the same moment, the
leader clapped his hands ; the performers, panting and ex-
hausted, dropped into a sitting posture ; and the first zikr, as
it is called, came abruptly to an end. Some iow, however,
could not stop immediately, but kept on swaying and muttering
to themselves ; while the one in the fit, having ceased to shriek,
lay out stiff and straight, apparently in a state of coma.

There was a murmur of relief and a simultaneous rising
among the spectators. It was announced that another zikr,
with a reinforcement of fresh dervishes, would soon begin ;
but the Europeans had had enough of it, and few remained for
the second performance.

Going out, we paused beside the poor fellow on the floor,
and asked if nothing could be done for him.

" He is struck by Mohammed," said gravely an Egyptian
official who was standing by.

At that moment, the leader came over, knelt down beside
him, touched him lightly on the head and breast, and
whispered something in his ear. The man was then quite
rigid, and white as death. We waited, however, and after a
few more minutes saw him struggle back into a dazed, half-
conscious state, when he was helped to his feet and led away
by his friends.

The courtyard as we came out was full of dervishes sitting
on cane benches in the shade, and sipping coffee. The green
leaves rustled overhead, with glimpses of intensely blue sky
between ; and brilliant patches of sunshine flickered down upon
groups of wild-looking, half-savage figures in parti -coloured
garments. It was one of those ready-made subjects that the
sketcher passes by with a sigh, but which live in his memory
for ever.

From hence, being within a few minutes' drive of Old
Cairo, we went on as far as the Mosque of 'Amr — an unin-

CAIRO AND THE MECCA PILGRIMAGE. 31

teresting ruin standing alone among the rubbish-mounds of the
first Mohammedan capital of Egypt. It is constructed on the
plan of a single quadrangle 225 feet square, surrounded by a
covered colonnade one range of pillars in depth on the west
(which is the side of the entrance) ; four on the north ; three
on the south ; and six on the east, which is the place of prayer,
and contains three holy niches and the pulpit. The columns,
245 in number, have been brought from earlier Roman and
Byzantine buildings. They are of various marbles and have
all kinds of capitals. Some being originally too short, have
been stilted on disproportionately high bases ; and in one
instance the necessary height has been obtained by adding a
second capital on the top of the first. We observed one
column of that rare black and white speckled marble of which
there is a specimen in the pulpit of St. Mark's in Venice ; and
one of the holy niches contains some fragments of Byzantine
mosaics. But the whole building seems to have been put
together in a barbarous way, and would appear to owe its
present state of dilapidation more to bad workmanship than to
time. Many of the pillars, especially on the western side, are
fallen and broken ; the octagonal fountain in the centre is a
roofless ruin ; and the little minaret at the S.E. corner is no
longer safe.

Apart, however, from its poverty of design and detail, the
Mosque of 'Amr is interesting as a point of departure in the
history of Saracenic architecture. It was built by 'Amr Ebn
el-'As, the Arab conqueror of Egypt, in the twenty-first year
of the Hegira (a.d. 642), just ten years after the death of
Mohammed ; and it is the earliest Saracenic edifice in Egypt.
We were glad, therefore, to have seen it for this reason, if for
no other. But it is a barren, dreary place ; and the glare
reflected from all sides of the quadrangle was so intense that
we were thankful to get away again into the narrow streets
beside the river.

Here we presently fell in with a wedding procession con-
sisting of a crowd of men, a band, and some three or four hired
carriages full of veiled women, one of whom was pointed out
as the bride. The bridegroom walked in the midst of the men,
who seemed to be teasing him, drumming round him, and

32 CAIRO AND THE MECCA PILGRIMAGE.

opposing his progress ; while high above the laughter, the
shouting, the jingle of tambourines and the thrumming of
darabukkehs, was heard the shrill squeal of some instrument
that sounded exactly like a bagpipe.

It was a brilliant afternoon, and we ended our day's work,
I remember, with a drive on the Shubra road and a glance at
the gardens of the Khedive's summer palace. The Shubra
road is the Champs Elysees of Cairo, and is thronged every
day from four to half-past six. Here little sheds of roadside
cafes alternate with smart modern villas ; ragged fellaheen on
jaded donkeys trot side by side with elegant attaches on
high -stepping Arabs ; while tourists in hired carriages, Jew
bankers in unexceptionable phaetons, veiled hareems in London-
built broughams, Italian shopkeepers in preposterously fashion-
able toilettes, grave sheykhs on magnificent Cairo asses, officers
in frogged and braided frocks, and English girls in tall hats
and close-fitting habits followed by the inevitable little solemn-
looking English groom, pass and repass, precede and follow
each other, in one changing, restless, heterogeneous stream, the
like of which is to be seen in no other capital in the world.
The sons of the Khedive drive here daily, always in separate
carriages and preceded by four Sai'ses and four guards. They
are of all ages and sizes, from the Hereditary Prince, a pale,
gentlemanly-looking young man of four or five and twenty,
down to one tiny, imperious atom of about six, who is dressed
like a little man, and is constantly leaning out of his carriage-
window and shrilly abusing his coachman.^

Apart, however, from those who frequent it, the Shubra
road is a really fine drive, broad, level, raised some six or
eight feet above the cultivated plain, closely planted on both
sides with acacias and sycamore fig-trees, and reaching straight
away for four miles out of Cairo, counting from the railway
terminus to the Summer Palace. The carriage-way is about
as wide as the road across Hyde Park which connects Bays-
water with Kensington ; and towards the Shubra end, it runs
close beside the Nile. Many of the scyamores are of great size
and quite patriarchal girth. Their branches meet overhead

^ The Hereditary Prince, it need scarcely be said, is the present
Khedive, Tewfik Pasha. [Note to Second Edition.]

CAIRO AND THE MECCA PILGRIMAGE 33

nearly all the way, weaving a delicious shade and making a
cool green tunnel of the long perspective.

We did not stay long in the Khedive's gardens, for it was
already getting late when we reached the gates ; but we went
far enough to see that they were tolerably well kept, not over
formal, and laid out with a view to masses of foliage, shady
paths, and spaces of turf inlaid with flower-beds, after the style
of the famous Sarntheim and Moser gardens at Botzen in the
Tyrol. Here are Sont trees {Acacia Nilotica) of unusual size,
powdered all over with little feathery tufts of yellow blossom ;
orange and lemon-trees in abundance ; heaps of little green
limes ; bananas bearing heavy pendent bunches of ripe fruit ;
winding thickets of pomegranates, oleanders, and salvias ; and
great beds, and banks, and trellised walks of roses. Among
these, however, I observed none of the rarer varieties. As for
the Pointsettia, it grows in Egypt to a height of twenty feet,
and bears blossoms of such size and colour as we in England
can form no idea of We saw large trees of it both here and
at Alexandria that seemed as if bending beneath a mantle of
crimson stars, some of which cannot have measured less than
twenty-two inches in diameter.

A large Italian fountain in a rococo style is the great sight
of the place. We caught a glimpse of it through the trees,
and surprised the gardener who was showing us over by
declining to inspect it more nearly. He could not understand
why we preferred to give our time to the shrubs and flower-beds.

Driving back presently towards Cairo with a big handful
of roses apiece, we saw the sun going down in an aureole of
fleecy pink and golden clouds, the Nile flowing by like a stream
of liquid light, and a little fleet of sailing boats going up to
Boulak before a puff of north wind that had sprung up as the
sun neared the horizon. That puff of north wind, those gliding
sails, had a keen interest for us now, and touched us nearly ;
because — I have delayed this momentous revelation till the last
moment — because we were to start to-morrow !

And this is why I have been able, in the midst of so much
that was new and bewildering, to remember quite circum-
stantially the dates, and all the events connected with these
last two days. They were to be our last two days in Cairo ;

34 CAIRO AND THE MECCA PILGRIMAGE.

and to-morrow morning, Saturday the 13th of December, we
were to go on board a certain dahabeeyah now lying off the
iron bridge at Boulak, therein to begin that strange aquatic
life to which we had been looking forward with so many hopes
and fears, and towards which we had been steering through so
many preliminary difficulties.

But the difficulties were all over now, and everything was
settled ; though not in the way we had at first intended. For,
in place of a small boat, we had secured one of the largest on
the river ; and instead of going alone, we had decided to throw
in our lot with that of three other travellers. One of these
three was already known to the Writer. The other two,
friends of the first, were on their way out from Europe, and
were not expected in Cairo for another week. We knew
nothing of them but their names.

Meanwhile L. and the Writer, assuming sole possession of
the dahabeeyah, were about to start ten days in advance ; it
being their intention to push on as far as Rhoda (the ultimate
point then reached by the Nile railway), and there to await
the arrival of the rest of the party. Now Rhoda (more
correctly Roda) is just one hundred and eighty miles south of
Cairo ; and we calculated upon seeing the Sakkarah pyramids,
the Turra quarries, the tombs of Beni Hassan, and the famous
grotto of the Colossus on the Sledge, before our fellow-
travellers should be due.

" It depends on the wind, you know," said our dragoman,
with a lugubrious smile.

We knew that it depended on the wind ; but what then ?
In Egypt, the wind is supposed always to blow from the north
at this time of the year, and we had ten good days at our
disposal The observation was clearly irrelevant.

CHAPTER III.

CAIRO TO BEDRESHAYN.

A. RAPID raid into some of the nearest shops, for things
remembered at the last moment — a breathless gathering up of
innumerable parcels — a (ew hurried farewells on the steps of
the hotel — and away we rattle as fast as a pair of rawboned
greys can carry us. For this morning every moment is of
value. We are already late ; we expect visitors to luncheon
on board at midday ; and we are to weigh anchor at two P.M.
Hence our anxiety to reach Boulak before the bridge is opened,
that we may drive across to the western bank against which
our dahabeeyah lies moored. Hence also our mortification
when we arrive just in time to see the bridge swing apart, and
the first tall mast glide through.

Presently, however, when those on the look-out have
observed our signals of distress, a smart-looking sandal, or
jolly-boat, decked with gay rugs and cushions, manned by five
smiling Arabs, and flying a bright little new Union Jack, comes
swiftly threading her way in and out among the lumbering
barges now crowding through the bridge. In a {ew more
minutes, we are afloat. For this is our sandal, and these are
five of our crew ; and of the three dahabeeyahs moored over
yonder in the shade of the palms, the biggest by far, and the
trimmest, is our own dear, memorable ' Philae.'

Close behind the Philse lies the ' Bagstones,' — a neat little
dahabeeyah in the occupation of two English ladies who
chanced to cross with us in the ' Simla ' from Brindisi, and of
whom we have seen so much ever since that we regard them

36 CAIRO TO BEDRESHAYN.

by this time as quite old friends in a strange land. I will call
them the M. B.'s. The other boat, lying off a few yards ahead,
carries the tricolor, and is chartered by a party of French
gentlemen. All three are to sail to-day.

And now we are on board, and have shaken hands with
the captain, and are as busy as bees ; for there are cabins to
put in order, flowers to arrange, and a hundred little things to
be seen to before the guests arrive. It is wonderful, however,
what a few books and roses, an open piano, and a sketch or
two, will do. In a few minutes the comfortless hired look has
vanished, and long enough before the first comers are announced,
the Philae wears an aspect as cosy and home-like as if she had
been occupied for a month.

As for the luncheon, it certainly surprised the givers of the
entertainment quite as much as it must have surprised their
guests. Being, no doubt, a pre-arranged display of professional
pride on the part of dragoman and cook, it was more like an
excessive Christmas dinner than a modest midday meal. We
sat through it unflinchingly, however, for about an hour and
three quarters, when a startling discharge of firearms sent us all
running upon deck, and created a wholesome diversion in our
favour. It was the French boat signalling her departure,
shaking out her big sail, and going off triumphantly.

I fear that we of the Bagstones and Philae — being mere
mortals and Englishwomen — could not help feeling just a
little spiteful when we found the tricolor had started first ; but
then it was a consolation to know that the Frenchmen were
going only to Assuan. Such is the espj^it du Nil. The
people in dahabeeyahs despise Cook's tourists ; those who are
bound for the Second Cataract look down with lofty compassion
upon those whose ambition extends only to the First ; and
travellers who engage their boat by the month hold their heads
a trifle higher than those who contract for the trip. We, who
were going as far as we liked and for as long as we liked,
could afford to be magnanimous. So we forgave the French-
men, went down again to the saloon, and had coffee and music.

It was nearly three o'clock when our Cairo visitors wished
us ' bon voyage ' and good-bye. Then the M. B.'s, who, with
their nephew, had been of the party, went back to their own

CAIRO To BEDREStiAYN. yi

boat ; and both captains prepared to sail at a given signal.
For the M. B.'s had entered into a solemn convention to start
with us, moor with us, and keep with us, if practicable, all the
way up the river. It is pleasant now to remember that this
sociable compact, instead of falling through as such compacts
are wont to do, was quite literally carried out as far as Aboo
Simbel ; that is to say, during a period of seven weeks' hard
going, and for a distance of upwards of eight hundred miles.

At last all is ready. The awning that has all day roofed
in the upper deck i5 taken down ; the captain stands at
the head of the steps ; the steersman is at the helm ; the
dragoman has loaded his musket. Is the Bagstones ready?
We wave a handkerchief of inquiry — the signal is answered —
the mooring ropes are loosened — the sailors pole the boat off
from the bank — bang go the guns, six from the Philae, and six
from the Bagstones, and away we go, our huge sail filling as it
takes the wind !

Happy are the Nile travellers who start thus with a fair
breeze on a brilliant afternoon. The good boat cleaves her
way swiftly and steadily. Water-side palaces and gardens
glide by, and are left behind. The domes and minarets of
Cairo drop quickly out of sight. The mosque of the citadel,
and the ruined fort that looks down upon it from the mountain
ridge above, diminish in the distance. The Pyramids stand up
sharp and clear.

We sit on the high upper deck, which is furnished with
lounge-chairs, tables and foreign rugs, like a drawing-room in
the open air, and enjoy the prospect at our ease. The valley
is wide here and the banks are flat, showing a steep verge of
crumbling alluvial mud next the river. Long belts of palm
groves, tracts of young corn only an inch or two above the
surface, and clusters of mud huts relieved now and then by a
little whitewashed cupola or a stumpy minaret, succeed each
other on both sides of the river, while the horizon is bounded
to right and left by long ranges of yellow limestone mountains,
in the folds of which sleep inexpressibly tender shadows
of pale violet and blue.

Thus the miles glide away, and by and by we approach
Turra — a large, new-looking mud village, and the first of any

38 CAIRO TO BEDRESHAYN.

extent that we have yet seen. Some of the houses are white-
washed ; a few have glass windows, and many seem to be
unfinished. A space of white, stony, glaring plain separates
the village from the quarried mountains beyond, the flanks of
which show all gashed and hewn away. One great cliff seems
to have been cut sheer off for a distance of perhaps half a mile.
Where the cuttings are fresh, the limestone comes out dazzling
white, and the long slopes of debris heaped against the foot of
the cliffs glisten like snow-drifts in the sun. Yet the outer
surface of the mountains is orange-tawny, like the Pyramids.
As for the piles of rough-hewn blocks that lie ranged along the
bank ready for transport, they look like salt rather than stone.
Here lies moored a whole fleet of cargo boats, laden and
lading ; and along the tramway that extends from the river-
side to the quarries, we see long trains of mule-carts coming
and going.

P'or all the new buildings in Cairo, the Khedive's palaces,
the public offices, the smart modern villas, the glaring new
streets, the theatres, and foot-pavements, and cafes, all come
from these mountains — ^just as the Pyramids did, more than
six thousand years ago. There are hieroglyphed tablets and
sculptured grottoe^ to be seen in the most ancient part of the
quarries, if one were inclined to stop for them at this early
stage of the journey ; and Champollion tells of two magnificent
outlines done in red ink upon the living rock by some master-
hand of Pharaonic times, the cutting of which was never even
begun. A substantial new barrack and an esplanade planted
with sycamore figs bring the straggling village to an end.

And now, as the afternoon wanes, we draw near to a dense,
wide -spreading forest of stately date-palms on the western
bank, knowing that beyond them, though unseen, lie the
mounds of Memphis and all the wonders of Sakkarah. Then
the sun goes down behind the Libyan hills ; and the palms
stand out black and bronzed against a golden sky ; and the
Pyramids, left far behind, Iq^k grey and ghostly in the
distance.

Presently, when it is quite dusk and the stars are out, we
moor for the night at Bedreshayn, which is the nearest point
for visiting Sakkarah. There is a railway station here, and

CAIRO TO BEDRESHAYN. 39

also a considerable village, both lying back about half a mile
from the river ; and the distance from Cairo, which is reckoned
at fifteen miles by the line, is probably about eighteen by water.

Such was our first day on the Nile. And perhaps, before
going farther on our way, I ought to describe the Philse, and
introduce Reis Hassan and his crew.

A dahabeeyah, at the first glance, is more like a civic or
an Oxford University barge, than anything in the shape of a
boat with which we in England are familiar. It is shallow
and flat-bottomed, and is adapted for either sailing or rowing.
It carries two masts ; a big one near the prow, and a smaller
one at the stern. The cabins are on deck, and occupy the
after-part of the vessel ; and the roof of the cabins forms the
raised deck, or open-air drawing-room already mentioned.
This upper deck is reached from the lower deck by two little
flights of steps, and is the exclusive territory of the passengers.
The lower deck is the territory of the crew. A dahabeeyah
is, in fact, not very unlike the Noah's Ark of our childhood,
with this difference — the habitable part, instead of occupying
the middle of the vessel, is all at one end, top-heavy and
many-windowed ; while the fore-deck is not more than six feet
above the level of the water. The hold, however, is under the
lower deck, and so counterbalances the weight at the other
end. Not to multiply comparisons unnecessarily, I may say
that a large dahabeeyah reminds one of old pictures of the
Bucentaur ; especially when the men are at their oars.

The kitchen — which is a mere shed like a Dutch oven in
shape, and contains only a^'charcoal stove and a row of stew-
pans — stands between the big mast and the prow, removed as
far as possible from the passengers' cabins. In this position
the cook is protected from a favourable wind by his shed ; but
in the case of a contrary wind he is screened by an awning.
How, under even the most favourable circumstances, these men
can serve up the elaborate dinners which are the pride of a
Nile cook's heart, is sufficiently wonderful ; but how they
achieve the same results when wind-storms and sand-storms
are blowing, and every breath is laden with the fine grit of
the desert, is little short of miraculous.

Thus far, all dahabeeyahs are alike. The cabin arrange-

40 CAIRO TO BEDRESHAYN.

ments differ, however, according to the size of the boat ; and it
must be remembered that in describing the Philae, I describe a
dahabeeyah of the largest build — her total length from stem
to stern being just one hundred feet, and the width of her upper
deck at the broadest part little short of twenty.

Our floor being on a somewhat lower level than the men's
deck, we went down three steps to the entrance door, on each
side of which was an external cupboard, one serving as a store-
room and the other as a pantry. This door led into a passage
out of which opened four sleeping -cabins, two on each side.
These cabins measured about eight feet in length by four and
a half in width, and contained a bed, a chair, a fixed washing-
stand, a looking-glass against the wall, a shelf, a row of hooks,
and under each bed two large drawers for clothes. At the end
of this little passage another door opened into the dining saloon
— a spacious, cheerful room, some twenty-three or twenty-four
feet long, situate in the widest part of the boat, and lighted by
four windows on each side and a skylight. The panelled walls
and ceiling were painted in white picked out with gold ; a
cushioned divan covered with a smart woollen reps ran along
each side ; and a gay Brussels carpet adorned the floor. The
dining-table stood in the centre of the room ; and there was
ample space for a piano, two little bookcases, and several
chairs. The window-curtains and portieres were of the same
reps as the divan, the prevailing colours being scarlet and
orange. Add a couple of mirrors in gilt frames ; a vase of
flowers on the table (for we were rarely without flowers of some
sort, even in Nubia, where our daily bouquet had to be made
with a few bean blossoms and castor -oil berries) ; plenty of
books ; the gentlemen's guns and sticks in one corner ; and
the hats of all the party hanging in the spaces between the
windows ; and it will be easy to realise the homely, habitable
look of our general sitting-room.

Another door and passage opening from the upper end of
the saloon led to three more sleeping-rooms, two of which were
single and one double ; a bath-room ; a tiny back staircase
leading to the upper deck ; and the stern cabin saloon. This
last, following the form of the stern, was semicircular, lighted
by eight windows, and surrounded by a divan. Under this, as

CAIRO TO BEDRESHAYN. 41

under the saloon divans, there ran a row of deep drawers,
which, being fairly divided, held our clothes, wine, and books.
The entire length of the dahabeeyah being exactly one
hundred feet, I take the cabin part to have occupied about
fifty-six or fifty-seven feet (that is to say, about six or seven
feet over the exact half), and the lower deck to have measured
the remaining forty -three feet. But these dimensions, being
given from memory, are approximate.

For the crew there was no sleeping accommodation what-
ever, unless they chose to creep into the hold among the
luggage and packing-cases. But this they never did. They
just rolled themselves up at night, heads and all, in rough
brown blankets, and lay about the lower deck like dogs.

The Reis, or captain, the steersman, and twelve sailors, the
dragoman, head cook, assistant cook, two waiters, and the boy
who cooked for the crew, completed our equipment. Reis
Hassan — short, stern-looking, authoritative — was a Cairo Arab.
The dragoman, Elias Talhamy, was a Syrian of Beyrout. The
two waiters, Michael and Habib, and the head cook (a wizened
old cordon bleu named Hassan Bedawee) were also Syrians.
The steersman and five of the sailors were from Thebes ; four
belonged to a place near Philae ; one came from a village
opposite Kom Ombo ; one from Cairo, and two were Nubians
from Assuan. They were of all shades, from yellowish bronze
to a hue not far removed from black ; and though, at the first
mention of it, nothing more incongruous can well be imagined
than a sailor in petticoats and a turban, yet these men in their
loose blue gowns, bare feet, and white muslin turbans, looked not
only picturesque, but dressed exactly as they should be. They
were for the most part fine young men, slender but powerful,
square in the shoulders, like the ancient Egyptian statues, with
the same slight legs and long flat feet. More docile, active,
good-tempered, friendly fellows never pulled an oar. Simple
and trustful as children, frugal as anchorites, they worked
cheerfully from sunrise to sunset, sometimes towing the daha-
beeyah on a rope all day long, like barge-horses ; sometimes
punting for hours, which is the hardest work of all ; yet always
singing at their task, always smiling when spoken to, and made
as happy as princes with a handful of coarse Egyptian tobacco,

42 CAIRO TO BEDRESHAYN.

or a bundle of fresh sugar-canes bought for a few pence by the
river-side. We soon came to know them all by name —
Mehemet Ali, Salame, Khalifeh, Riskali, Hassan, Musa, and so
on ; and as none of us ever went on shore without one or two
of them to act as guards and attendants, and as the poor
fellows were constantly getting bruised hands or feet, and
coming to the upper deck to be doctored, a feeling of genuine
friendliness was speedily established between us.

The ordinary pay of a Nile sailor is two pounds a month,
with an additional allowance of about three and sixpence a
month for flour. Bread is their staple food, and they make it
themselves at certain places along the river where there are
large public ovens for the purpose. This bread, which is cut
up in slices and dried in the sun, is as brown as gingerbread
and as hard as biscuit. They eat it soaked in hot water,
flavoured with oil, pepper, and salt, and stirred in with boiled
lentils till the whole becomes of the colour, flavour, and con-
sistence of thick pea-soup. Except on grand occasions, such
as Christmas Day or the anniversary of the Flight of the
Prophet, when the passengers treat them to a sheep, this mess
of bread and lentils, with a little coffee twice a day, and now
and then a handful of dates, constitutes their only food through-
out the journey.

The Nile season is the Nile sailors' harvest-time. When
the warm weather sets in and the travellers migrate with the
swallows, these poor fellows disperse in all directions ; some to
seek a living as porters in Cairo ; others to their homes in
Middle and Upper Egypt where, for about fourpence a day,
they take hire as labourers, or work at Shaduf irrigation till
the Nile again overspreads the land. The Shaduf work is
hard, and a man has to keep on for nine hours out of every
twenty-four ; but he prefers it, for the most part, to employ-
ment in the government sugar -factories, where the wages
average at about the same rate, but are paid in bread, which,
being doled out by unscrupulous inferiors, is too often of light
weight and bad quality. The sailors who succeed in getting a
berth on board a cargo -boat for the summer are the most
fortunate.

Our captain, pilot, and crew were all Mohammedans. The

CAIRO TO BEDRESHAYN. 43

cook and his assistant were Syrian Mohammedans. The
dragoman and waiters were Christians of the Syrian Latin
church. Only one out of the fifteen natives could write or
read ; and that one was a sailor named Egendi, who acted as
a sort of second mate. He used sometimes to write letters
for the others, holding a scrap of tumbled paper across the
palm of his left hand, and scrawling rude Arabic characters
with a reed-pen of his own making. This Egendi, though
perhaps the least interesting of the crew, was a man of many
accomplishments — an excellent comic actor, a bit of a shoe-
maker, and a 'first-rate barber. More than once, when we
happened to be stationed far from any village, he shaved his
messmates all round, and turned them out with heads as smooth
as billiard balls.

There are, of course, good and bad Mohammedans as there
are good and bad churchmen of every denomination ; and we
had both sorts on board. Some of the men were very devout,
never failing to perform their ablutions and say their prayers
at sunrise and sunset. Others never dreamed of doing so.
Some would not touch wine — had never tasted it in their lives,
and would have suffered any extremity rather than break the
law of their Prophet. Others had a nice taste in clarets, and
a delicate appreciation of the respective merits of rum or
whisky punch. It is, however, only fair to add that we never
gave them these things except on special occasions, as on
Christmas Day, or when they had been wading in the river, or
in some other way undergoing extra fatigue in our service.
Nor do I believe there was a man on board who would have
spent a para of his scanty earnings on any drink stronger than
coffee. Coffee and tobacco are, indeed, the only luxuries in
which the Egyptian peasant indulges ; and our poor fellows
were never more grateful than when we distributed among
them a few pounds of cheap native tobacco. This abominable
mixture sells in the bazaars at sixpence the pound, the plant
from which it is gathered being raised from inferior seed in a
soil chemically unsuitable, because wholly devoid of potash.

Also it is systematically spoiled in the growing. Instead
of being nipped off when green and dried in the shade, the
leaves are allowed to wither on the stalk before they are

44 CAIRO TO BEDRESHAYN.

gathered. The result is a kind of rank hay without strength
or flavour, which is smoked by only the very poorest class,
and carefully avoided by all who can afford to buy Turkish or
Syrian tobacco.

Twice a day, after their midday and evening meals, our
sailors were wont to sit in a circle and solemnly smoke a certain
big pipe of the kind known as a hubble-bubble. This hubble-
bubble (which was of most primitive make and consisted of a
cocoa-nut and two sugar-canes) was common property ; and,
being filled by the captain, went round from hand to hand,
from mouth to mouth, while it lasted.

They smoked cigarettes at other times, and seldom went
on shore without a tobacco-pouch and a tiny book of cigarette-
papers. Fancy a bare-legged Arab making cigarettes ! No
Frenchman, however, could twist them up more deftly, or
smoke them with a better grace.

A Nile sailor's service expires with the season, so that he
is generally a landsman for about half the year ; but the
captain's appointment is permanent. He is expected to live
in Cairo, and is responsible for his dahabeeyah during the
summer months, while it lies up at Boulak. Reis Hassan had
a wife and a comfortable little home on the outskirts of Old
Cairo, and was looked upon as a well-to-do personage among
his fellows. He received four pounds a month all the year
round from the owner of the Philae — a magnificent broad-
shouldered Arab of about six foot nine, with a delightful smile,
the manners of a gentleman, and the rapacity of a Shylock.

Our men treated us to a concert that first night, as we lay
moored under the bank near Bedreshayn. Being told that it
was customary to provide musical instruments, we had given
them leave to buy a tar and darabukkeh before starting.
The tar, or tambourine, was pretty enough, being made of
rosewood inlaid with mother-of-pearl ; but a more barbarous
affair than the darabukkeh was surely never constructed. This
primitive drum is about a foot and a half in length, funnel-
shaped, moulded of sun-dried clay like the kullehs, and covered
over at the top with strained parchment. It is held under the
left arm and played like a tom-tom with the fingers of the
right hand ; and it weighs about four pounds. We would

CAIRO TO BEDRESHAYN.

willingly have added a double pipe or a cocoa-nut fiddle^ to
the strength of the band, but none of our men could play thenn.
The tar and darabukkeh, however, answered the purpose well
enough, and were perhaps better suited to their strange singing
than more tuneful instruments.

We had just finished dinner when they began. First came
a prolonged wail that swelled, and sank, and swelled again,
and at last died away. This was the principal singer leading
off with the keynote. The next followed suit on the third of
the key ; and finally all united in one long, shrill descending

NATIVE CANGIAS.

cry, like a yawn, or a howl, or a combination of both. This,
twice repeated, preluded their performance and worked them
up, apparently, to the necessary pitch of musical enthusiasm.
The primo tenore then led off in a quavering roulade, at the
end of which he slid into a melancholy chant to which the rest
sang chorus. At the close of each verse they yawned and
howled again ; while the singer, carried away by his emotions,
broke out every now and then into a repetition of the same
amazing and utterly indescribable vocal wriggle with which he

1 Arabic — Ke7nengeh.

46 CAIRO TO BEDRESHAYN.

had begun. Whenever he did this, the rest held their breath
in respectful admiration, and uttered an approving "Ah!" —
which is here the customary expression of applause.

We thought their music horrible that first night, I remember;
though we ended, as I believe most travellers do, by liking it.
We, however, paid them the compliment of going upon deck
and listening to their performance. As a night-scene, nothing
could be more picturesque than this group of turbaned Arabs
sitting in a circle, cross-legged, with a lantern in the midst.
The singer quavered ; the musicians thrummed ; the rest softly
clapped their hands to time, and waited their turn to chime in
with the chorus. Meanwhile the lantern lit up their swarthy
faces and their glittering teeth. The great mast towered up
into the darkness. The river gleamed below. The stars shone
overhead. We felt we were indeed strangers in a strange land.

CHAPTER IV.

SAKkArAH and MEMPHIS.

Having arrived at Bedreshayn after dark and there moored
for the night, we were roused early next morning by the furious
squabbling and chattering of some fifty or sixty men and boys
who, with a score or two of little rough-coated, depressed-look-
ing donkeys, were assembled on the high bank above. Seen
thus against the sky, their tattered garments fluttering in the
wind, their brown arms and legs in frantic movement, they
looked like a troop of mad monkeys let loose. Every moment
the uproar grew shriller. Every moment more men, more
boys, more donkeys, appeared upon the scene. It was as if
some new Cadmus had been sowing boys and donkeys broad-
cast, and they had all come up at once for our benefit.

Then it appeared that Talhamy, knowing how eight donkeys
would be wanted for our united forces, had sent up to the
village for twenty-five, intending, with perhaps more wisdom
than justice, to select the best and dismiss the others. The
result was overwhelming. Misled by the magnitude of the
order and concluding that Cook's party had arrived, every man,
boy, and donkey in Bedreshayn and the neighbouring village
of Mitrahineh had turned out in hot haste and rushed down
to the river ; so that by the time breakfast was over there were
steeds enough in readiness for all the English in Cairo. I pass
over the tumult that ensued when our party at last mounted
the eight likeliest beasts and rode away, leaving the indignant
multitude to disperse at leisure.

And now our way lies over a dusty flat, across the railway

48 SAKKARAH and MEMPHIS.

line, past the long straggling village, and through the famous
plantations known as the Palms of Memphis. There is a
crowd of patient-looking fellaheen at the little whitewashed
station, waiting for the train, and the usual rabble of clamorous
water, bread, and fruit -sellers. Bedreshayn, though a collec-
tion of mere mud hovels, looks pretty, nestling in the midst of
stately date-palms. Square pigeon-towers, embedded round the
top with layers of wide-mouthed pots and stuck with rows of
leafless acacia-boughs like ragged baimer-poles, stand up at
intervals among the huts. The pigeons go in and out of the
pots, or sit preening their feathers on the branches. The dogs
dash out and bark madly at us, as we go by. The little brown
children pursue us with cries of "Bakhshish!" The potter,
laying out ro^ys of soft, grey, freshly-moulded clay bowls and
kullehs' to bake in the sun, stops open-mouthed, and stares as
if he had never seen a European till this moment. His young
wife snatches up her baby and pulls her veil more closely over
her face, fearing the evil eye.

The village being left behind, we ride on through one long
palm grove after another ; now skirting the borders of a large
sheet of tranquil back-water ; now catching a glimpse of the
far-off pyramids of Ghizeh, now passing between the huge
irregular mounds of crumbled clay which mark the site of
Memphis. Next beyond these we come out upon a high em-
banked road some twenty feet above the plain, which here
spreads out like a wide lake and spends its last dark-brown
alluvial wave against the yellow rocks which define the edge of
the desert. High on this barren plateau, seen for the first time
in one unbroken panoramic line, there stands a solemn company
of pyramids ; those of Sakkarah straight before us, those of
Dahshijr to the left, those of Abusir to the right, and the great
Pyramids of Ghizeh always in the remotest distance.

It might be thought there would be some monotony in such
a scene, and but little beauty. On the contrary, however, there
is beauty of a most subtle and exquisite kind — transcendent
beauty of colour, and atmosphere, and sentiment ; and no

^ The goolah, or kulleh, is a porous water-jar of sun-dried Nile mud.
These jais are made of all sizes and in a variety of remarkably graceful
forms, and cost from about one farthing to twopence apiece.

SAKKARAH and MEMPHIS. 49

monotony either in the landscape or in the forms of the
pyramids. One of these which we are now approaching is
built in a succession of platforms gradually decreasing towards
the top. Another down yonder at Dahshur curves outward at
the angles, half dome, half pyramid, like the roof of the Palais
de Justice in Paris. No two are of precisely the same size, or
built at precisely the same angle ; and each cluster differs some-
how in the grouping.

Then again the colouring ! — colouring not to be matched
with any pigments yet invented. The Libyan rocks, like rusty
gold — the paler hue of the driven sand-slopes — the warm maize
of the nearer Pyramids which, seen from this distance, takes a
tender tint of rose, like the red bloom on an apricot — the
delicate tone of these objects against the sky — the infinite
gradation of that sky, soft and pearly towards the horizon, blue
and burning towards the zenith — the opalescent shadows, pale
blue, and violet, and greenish-grey, that nestle in the hollows
of the rock and the curves of the sand-drifts — all this is beau-
tiful in a way impossible to describe, and alas ! impossible to
copy. Nor does the lake-like plain with its palm-groves and
corn-flats form too tame a foreground. It is exactly what is
wanted to relieve that glowing distance.

And now, as we follow the zigzags of the road, the new
pyramids grow gradually larger ; the sun mounts higher ; the
heat increases. We meet a train of camels, buffaloes, shaggy
brown sheep, men, women, and children of all ages. The
camels are laden with bedding, rugs, mats, and crates of
poultry, and carry, besides, two women with babies and one
very old man. The younger men drive the tired beasts. The
rest follow behind. The dust rises after them in a cloud. It
is evidently the migration of a family of three, if not four gene-
rations. One cannot help being struck by the patriarchal
simplicity of the incident. Just thus, with flocks and herds and
all his clan, went Abraham into the land of Canaan close upon
four thousand years ago ; and one at least of these Sakkarah
pyramids was even then the oldest building in the world.

It is a touching and picturesque procession — much more
picturesque than ours, and much more numerous ; notwithstand-
ing that our united forces, including donkey-boys, porters, and

50 SAKKARAH AND MEMPHIS

miscellaneous hangers-on, number nearer thirty than twenty
persons. For there are the M. B.s and their nephew, and L.
and the Writer, and L.'s maid, and Talhamy, all on donkeys ;
and then there are the owners of the donkeys, also on
donkeys ; and then every donkey has a boy ; and every boy has
a donkey ; and every donkey-boy's donkey has an inferior boy
in attendance. Our style of dress, too, however convenient, is
not exactly in harmony with the surrounding scenery ; and one
cannot but feel, as these draped and dusty pilgrims pass us on
the road, that we cut a sorry figure with our hideous palm-leaf
hats, green veils, and white umbrellas.

But the most amazing and incongruous personage in our
whole procession is unquestionably George. Now George is
an English north-country groom whom the M. B.s have brought
out from the wilds of Lancashire, partly because he is a good
shot and may be useful to " Master Alfred " after birds and
crocodiles ; and partly from a well-founded belief in his general
abilities. And George, who is a fellow of infinite jest and
infinite resource, takes to Eastern life as a duckling to the water.
He picks up Arabic as if it were his mother tongue. He skins
birds like a practised taxidermist. He can even wash and iron
on occasion. He is, in short, groom, footman, housemaid,
laundry -maid, stroke oar, gamekeeper, and general factotum
all in one. And besides all this, he is gifted with a comic
gravity of countenance that no surprises and no disasters can
upset for a moment. To see this worthy anachronism canter-
ing along in his groom's coat and gaiters, livery-buttons, spotted
neckcloth, tall hat, and all the rest of it ; his long legs dangling
within an inch of the ground on either side of the most diminu-
tive of donkeys ; his double-barrelled fowling-piece under his
arm, and that imperturbable look in his face, one would have
sworn that he and Egypt were friends of old, and that he had
been brought up on pyramids from his earliest childhood.

It is a long and shelterless ride from the palms to the
desert ; but we come to the end of it at last, mounting just
such another sand-slope as that which leads up from the Ghizeh
road to the foot of the Great Pyramid. The edge of the
plateau here rises abruptly from the plain in one long range of
low perpendicular cliffs pierced with dark mouths of rock-cut

SAKKARAH AND MEMPHIS. 51

sepulchres, while the sand-slope by which we are climbing
pours down through a breach in the rock, as an Alpine snow-
drift flows through a mountain gap from the ice-level above.

And now, having dismounted through compassion for our
unfortunate little donkeys, the first thing we observe is the
curious mixture of debris underfoot. At Ghizeh one treads
only sand and pebbles ; but here at Sakkarah the whole
plateau is thickly strewn with scraps of broken pottery, lime-
stone, marble, and alabaster ; flakes of green and blue glaze ;
bleached bones ; shreds of yellow linen ; and lumps of some
odd -looking dark brown substance, like dried -up sponge.
Presently some one picks up a little noseless head of one of
the common blue -ware funereal statuettes, and immediately
we all fall to work, grubbing for treasure — a pure waste of
precious time ; for though the sand is full of debris, it has
been sifted so often and so carefully by the Arabs that it no
longer contains anything worth looking for. Meanwhile, one
finds a fragment of iridescent glass — another, a morsel of
shattered vase — a third, an opaque bead of some kind of yellow
paste. And then, with a shock which the present writer, at all
events, will not soon forget, we suddenly discover that these
scattered bones are human — that those linen shreds are shreds
of cerement cloths — that yonder odd-looking brown lumps are
rent fragments of what once was living flesh ! And now for
the first time we realise that every inch of this ground on which
we are standing, and all these hillocks and hollov/s and pits in
the sand, are violated graves.

" Ce n'est que le premier pas que coute." We soon became
quite hardened to such sights, and learned to rummage among
dusty sepulchres with no more compunction than would have
befitted a gang of professional body-snatchers. These are
experiences upon which one looks back afterwards with wonder,
and something like remorse ; but so infectious is the universal
callousness, and so overmastering is the passion for relic-hunt-
ing, that I do not doubt we should again do the same things
under the same circumstances. Most Egyptian travellers, if
questioned, would have to make a similar confession. Shocked
at first, they denounce with horror the whole system of
sepulchral excavation, legal as well as predatory ; acc^uiring,

52 SAKKArAH and MEMPHIS.

however, a taste for scarabs and funerary statuettes, they soon
begin to buy with eagerness the spoils of the dead ; finally,
they forget all their former scruples, and ask no better fortune
than to discover and confiscate a tomb for themselves.

Notwithstanding that I had first seen the Pyramids of
Ghizeh, the size of the Sakkarah group — especially of the
Pyramid in platforms — took me by surprise. They are all
smaller than the Pyramids of Khufu and Khafra, and would no
doubt look sufficiently insignificant if seen with them in close
juxtaposition ; but taken by themselves they are quite vast
enough for grandeur. As for the Pyramid in platforms (which
is the largest at Sakkarah, and next largest to the Pyramid of
Khafra) its position is so fine, its architectural style so excep-
tional, its age so immense, that one altogether loses sight of
these questions of relative magnitude. If Egyptologists are
right in ascribing the royal title hieroglyphed on the inner door
of this pyramid to Ouenephes, the fourth king of the First
Dynasty, then it is the most ancient building in the world. It
had been standing from five to seven hundred years when King
Khufu began his Great Pyramid at Ghizeh. It was over two
thousand years old when Abraham was born. It is now about
six thousand eight hundred years old according to Manetho
and Mariette, or about four thousand eight hundred according
to the computation of Bunsen. One's imagination recoils upon
the brink of such a gulf of time.

The door of this pyramid was carried off, with other
precious spoils, by Lepsius, and is now in the museum at
Berlin. The evidence that identifies the inscription is tolerably
direct. According to Manetho, an Egyptian historian who
wrote in Greek and lived in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus,
King Ouenephes built for himself a pyramid at a place called
Kokhome. Now a tablet discovered in the Serapeum by
Mariette gives the name of Ka-kem to the necropolis of
Sakkarah ; and as the pyramid in stages is not only the largest
on this platform, but is also the only one in which a royal
cartouche has been found, the conclusion seems obvious.

When a building has already stood for five or six thousand
years in a climate where mosses and lichens, and all those
natural signs of age to which we are accustomed in Europe

SAKKArAH and MEMPHIS. 53

are unknown, it is not to be supposed that a few centuries
more or less can tell upon its outward appearance ; yet to my
thinking the pyramid of Ouenephes looks older than those of
Ghizeh. If this be only fancy, it gives one, at all events, the
impression of belonging structurally to a ruder architectural
period. The idea of a monument composed of diminishing
platforms is in its nature more primitive than that of a smooth
four-sided pyramid. We remarked that the masonry on one
side — I think on the side facing eastwards — was in a much
more perfect condition than on either of the others.

Wilkinson describes the interior as " a hollow dome sup-
ported here and there by wooden rafters," and states that the
sepulchral chamber was lined with blue porcelain tiles.^ We
would have liked to go inside, but this is no longer possible,
the entrance being blocked by a recent fall of masonry.

Making up now for lost time, we rode on as far as the
house built in 1850 for Mariette's accommodation during the
excavation of the Serapeum — a labour which extended over a
period of more than four years.

The Serapeum, it need hardly be said, is the famous and
long-lost sepulchral temple of the sacred bulls. These bulls
(honoured by the Egyptians as successive incarnations of Osiris)
inhabited the temple of Apis at Memphis while they lived ;
and, being mummied after death, were buried in catacombs
prepared for them in the desert. In 1850, Mariette, travelling
in the interests of the French Government, discovered both the
temple and the catacombs, being, according to his own narra-
tive, indebted for the clue to a certain passage in Strabo, which
describes the Temple of Serapis as being situate in a district
where the sand was so drifted by the wind that the approach
to it was in danger of being overwhelmed ; while the sphinxes
on either side of the great avenue were already more or less
buried, some having only their heads above the surface. " If
Strabo had not written this passage," says Mariette, " it is
probable that the Serapeum would still be lost under the sands

1 Some of these tiles are to be seen in the Egyptian department of
the British Museum. They are not blue, but of a bluish green. For a
view of the sepulchral chamber, see Maspero's Archeologie Egyptienne^ Fig'.
230, p. 256. [Note to the Second Edition.]

54 SAKKARAH and MEMPHIS.

of the necropolis of Sakkarah. One day, however (in 1850),
being attracted to Sakkarah by my Egyptological studies, I
perceived the head of a sphinx showing above the surface. It
evidently occupied its original position. Close by lay a liba-
tion-table on which was engraved a hieroglyphic inscription to
Apis-Osiris. Then that passage in Strabo came to my memory,
and I knew that beneath my feet lay the avenue leading to the
long and vainly sought Serapeum. Without saying a word to
any one, I got some workmen together and we began excavat-
ing. The beginning was difficult ; but soon the lions, the
peacocks, the Greek statues of the Dromos, the inscribed tablets
of the Temple of Nectanebo ^ rose up from the sands. Thus
was the Serapeum discovered."

The house — a slight, one-storied building on a space of
rocky platform — looks down upon a sandy hollow which now
presents much the same appearance that it must have presented
when Mariette was first reminded of the fortunate passage in
Strabo. One or two heads of sphinxes peep up here and there
in a ghastly way above the sand, and mark the line of the great
avenue. The upper half of a boy riding on a peacock, appar-
ently of rude execution, is also visible. The rest is already
as completely overwhelmed as if it had never been uncovered.
One can scarcely believe that only twenty years ago, the whole
place was entirely cleared at so vast an expenditure of time
and labour. The work, as I have already mentioned, took four
years to complete. This avenue alone was six hundred feet in
length and bordered by an army of sphinxes, one hundred and
forty -one of which were found in sitii. As the excavation
neared the end of the avenue, the causeway, which followed a
gradual descent between massive walls, lay seventy feet below
the surface. The labour was immense, and the difficulties were
innumerable. The ground had to be contested inch by inch.
" In certain places," says Mariette, " the sand was fluid, so to
speak, and baffled us like water continually driven back and
seeking to regain its level." ^

1 Nectanebo I and Nectanebo II were the last native Pharaohs of
ancient Egypt, and flourished between B.C. 378 and B.C. 340. An earlier
temple must have preceded the Serapeum built by Nectanebo I.

? For an excellent and exact account of the Serapeum and the monu-

SAKKArAH and MEMPHIS. 55

If, however, the toil was great, so also was the reward. A
main avenue terminated by a semicircular platform, around
which stood statues of famous Greek philosophers and poets ;
a second avenue at right angles to the first ; the remains of
the great Temple of the Serapeum ; three smaller temples ;
and three distinct groups of Apis catacombs, were brought to
light. A descending passage opening from a chamber in the
great Temple led to the catacombs — vast labyrinths of vaults
and passages hewn out of the solid rock on which the Temples
were built. These three groups of excavations represent three
epochs of Egyptian history. The first and most ancient series
consists of isolated vaults dating from the XVIIIth to the
XXIInd dynasty; that is to say, from about B.C. 1703 to B.C.
980. The second group, which dates from the reign of Sheshonk
I (XXIInd dynasty, B.C. 980) to that of Tirhakah, the last
king of the XXVth dynasty, is more systematically planned,
and consists of one long tunnel bordered on each side by a
row of funereal chambers. The third belongs to the Greek
period, beginning with Psammetichus I (XXVIth dynasty, B.C.
665) and ending with the latest Ptolemies. Of these, the first
are again choked with sand ; the second are considered unsafe ;
and the third only is accessible to travellers.

After a short but toilsome walk, and some delay outside a
prison -like door at the bottom of a steep descent, we were
admitted by the guardian — a gaunt old Arab with a lantern
in his hand. It was not an inviting looking place within.
The outer daylight fell upon a rough step or two, beyond which
all was dark. We went in. A hot, heavy atmosphere met us
on the threshold ; the door fell to with a dull clang, the echoes
of which went wandering away as if into the central recesses of
the earth ; the Arab chattered and gesticulated. He was
telling us that we were now in the great vestibule, and that it
measured ever so many feet in this and that direction ; but we
could see nothing — neither the vaulted roof overhead, nor the
walls on any side, nor even the ground beneath our feet. It
was like the darkness of infinite space.

A lighted candle was then given to each person, and the

ments there discovered, see M. Arthur Rhone's L^Egypte en Petites Journees^
of which a new edition is now in the press. [Note to Second Edition.]

56 SAKKArAH and MEMPHIS.

Arab led the way. He went dreadfully fast, and it seemed at
every step as if one were on the brink of some frightful chasm.
Gradually, however, our eyes became accustomed to the gloom,
and we found that we had passed out of the vestibule into the
first great corridor. All was vague, mysterious, shadowy. A
dim perspective loomed out of the darkness. The lights
twinkled and flitted, like wandering sparks of stars. The Arab
held his lantern to the walls here and there, and showed us
some votive tablets inscribed with records of pious visits paid
by devout Egyptians to the sacred tombs. Of these they
found five hundred when the catacombs were first opened ;
but Mariette sent nearly all to the Louvre.

A few steps farther, and we came to the tombs — a succes-
sion of great vaulted chambers hewn out at irregular distances
along both sides of the central corridor, and sunk some six or
eight feet below the surface. In the middle of each chamber
stood an enormous sarcophagus of polished granite. The Arab,
flitting on ahead like a black ghost, paused a moment before
each cavernous opening, flashed the light of his lantern on the
sarcophagus, and sped away again, leaving us to follow as we
could.

So we went on, goin"- every moment deeper into the solid
rock, and farther from the open air and the sunshine. Thinking
it would be cold underground, we had brought warm wraps in
plenty ; but the heat, on the contrary, was intense, and the
atmosphere stifling. We had not calculated on the dryness of
the place, nor had we remembered that ordinary mines and
tunnels are cold because they are damp. But hers for incal-
culable ages — for thousands of years probably before the Nile
had even cut its path through the rocks of Silsilis — a cloudless
African sun had been pouring its daily floods of light and heat
upon "the dewless desert overhead. The place might well be
unendurable. It was like a great oven stored with the slowly
accumulated heat of cycles so remote, and so many, that the
earliest periods of Egyptian history seem, when compared with
them, to belong to yesterday.

Having gone on thus for a distance of nearly two hundred
yards, we came to a chamber containing the first hieroglyphed
sarcophagus we had yet seen ; all the rest being polished, but

SAKKArAH and MEMPHIS. 57

plain. Here the Arab paused ; and finding access provided
by means of a flight of wooden steps, we went down into the
chamber, walked round the sarcophagus, peeped inside by the
help of a ladder, and examined the hieroglyphs with which it
is covered. Enormous as they look from above, one can form
no idea of the bulk of these huge monolithic masses except from
the level on which they stand. This sarcophagus, which dates
from the reign of Amasis, of the XXVIth dynasty, measured
fourteen feet in length by eleven in height, and consisted of a
single block of highly-wrought black granite. Four persons
might sit in it round a small card -table, and play a rubber
comfortably.

From this point the corridor branches off for another two
hundred yards or so, leading always to more chambers and
more sarcophagi, of which last there are altogether twenty-four.
Three only are inscribed ; none measure less than from thirteen
to fourteen feet in length ; and all are empty. The lids in
every instance have been pushed back a little way, and some
are fractured ; but the spoilers have been unable wholly to
remove them. According to Mariette, the place was pillaged
by the early Christians, who, besides carrying off whatever they
could find in the way of gold and jewels, seem to have destroyed
the mummies of the bulls, and razed the great Temple nearly
to the ground. Fortunately, however, they either overlooked,
or left as worthless, some hundreds of exquisite bronzes and
the five hundred votive tablets before mentioned, which, as they
record not only the name and rank of the visitor, but also, with
few exceptions, the name and year of the reigning Pharaoh,
afford invaluable historical data, and are likely to do more than
any previously discovered documents towards clearing up dis-
puted points of Egyptian chronology.

It is a curious fact that one out of the three inscribed
sarcophagi should bear the oval of Cambyses — that Cambyses
of whom it is related that, having desired the priests of Memphis
to bring before him the God Apis, he drew his dagger in a
transport of rage and contempt, and stabbed the animal in the
thigh. According to Plutarch, he slew the beast and cast out
its body to the dogs ; according to Herodotus, " Apis lay some
time pining in the temple, but at last died of his wound, and

58 SAKKARAH and MEMPHIS.

the priests buried him secretly ;" but according to one of these
precious Serapeum tablets, the wounded bull did not die till
the fourth year of the reign of Darius. So wonderfully does
modern discovery correct and illustrate tradition.

And now comes the sequel to this ancient story in the
shape of an anecdote related by M. About, who tells how
Mariette, being recalled suddenly to Paris some months after the
opening of the Serapeum, found himself without the means of
carrying away all his newly-excavated antiquities, and so buried
fourteen cases in the desert, there to await his return. One of
these cases contained an Apis mummy which had escaped dis-
covery by the early Christians ; and this mummy was that of
the identical Apis stabbed by Cambyses. That the creature
had actually survived his wound was proved by the condition
of one of the thigh-bones, which showed unmistakable signs of
both injury and healing.

Nor does the story end here. Mariette being gone, and
having taken with him all that was most portable among his
treasures, there came to Memphis one whom M. About indicates
as "a young and august stranger" travelling in Egypt for his
pleasure. The Arabs, tempted perhaps by a princely bakh-
shish, revealed the secret of the hidden cases ; whereupon the
Archduke swept off the whole fourteen, despatched them to
Alexandria, and immediately shipped them for Trieste.^
" Quant au coupable," says M. About, who professes to have
had the story direct from Mariette, " il a fini si tragiquement
dans un autre hemisphere que, tout bien pese, je renonce a
publier son nom." But through so transparent a disguise it is
not difficult to identify the unfortunate hero of this curious
anecdote.

The sarcophagus in which the Apis was found remains in
the vaults of the Serapeum ; but we did not see it. Having
come more than two hundred yards already, and being by this
time wellnigh suffocated, we did not care to put two hundred
yards more between ourselves and the light of day. So we
turned back at the half distance — having, however, first burned
a pan of magnesian powder, which flared up wildly for a few

^ These objects, known as " The Miramar Collection," and catalogued by
Professor Reinisch, are now removed to Vienna. [Note to Second Edition.]

SAKKArAH and MEMPHIS. 55

seconds ; lit the huge gallery and all its cavernous recesses and
the wondering faces of the Arabs ; and then went out with a
plunge, leaving the darkness denser than before.

From hence, across a farther space of sand, we went in all
the blaze of noon to the tomb of one Ti, a priest and commoner
of the Fifth Dynasty, who married with a lady named Nefer-
hotep-s, the granddaughter of a Pharaoh, and here built himself
a magnificent tomb in the desert.

Of the fagade of this tomb, which must originally have
looked like a little temple, only two large pillars remain. Next
comes a square courtyard surrounded by a roofless colonnade,
from one corner of which a covered passage leads to two
chambers. In the centre of the courtyard yawns an open pit
some twenty-five feet in depth, with a shattered sarcophagus
just visible in the gloom of the vault below. All here is
limestone — walls, pillars, pavements, even the excavated debris
with which the pit had been filled in when the vault was closed
for ever. The quality of this limestone is close and fine like
marble, and so white that, although the walls and columns of
the courtyard are covered with sculptures of most exquisite
execution and of the greatest interest, the reflected light is so
intolerable, that we find it impossible to examine them with
the interest they deserve. In the passage, however, where
there is shade, and in the large chamber, where it is so dark
that we can see only by the help of lighted candles, we find a
succession of bas-reliefs so numerous and so closely packed
that it would take half a day to see them properly. Ranged
in horizontal parallel lines about a foot and a half in depth,
these extraordinary pictures, row above row, cover every inch
of wall-space from floor to ceiling. The relief is singularly low.
I should doubt if it anywhere exceeds a quarter of an inch.
The surface, which is covered with a thin film of very fine
cement, has a quality and polish like ivory. The figures
measure an average height of about twelve inches, and all are
coloured

Here, as in an open book, we have the biography of Ti.
His whole life, his pleasures, his business, his domestic relations,
are brought before us with just that faithful simplicity which
n^akes the charm of Montaigne and Pepys. A child might

6o SAKKARAH and MEMPHIS.

read the pictured chronicles which illuminate these walls, and
take as keen a pleasure in them as the wisest of archaeologists.
Ti was a wealthy man, and his wealth was of the agri-
cultural sort. He owned flocks and herds and vassals in
plenty. He kept many kinds of birds and beasts — geese,
ducks, pigeons, cranes, oxen, goats, asses, antelopes, and
gazelles. He was fond of fishing and fowling, and used some-
times to go after crocodiles and hippopotamuses, which came
down as low as Memphis in his time. He was a kind husband
too, and a good father, and loved to share his pleasures with
his family. Here we see him sitting in state with his wife and
children, while professional singers and dancers perform before
them. Yonder they walk out together and look on while the
farm-servants are at work, and watch the coming in of the
boats that bring home the produce of Ti's more distant lands.
Here the geese are being driven home ; the cows are crossing
a ford ; the oxen are ploughing ; the sower is scattering his
seed ; the reaper plies his sickle ; the oxen tread the grain ;
the corn is stored in the granary. There are evidently no
independent tradesfolk in these early days of the world. Ti
has his own artificers on his own estate, and all his goods and
chattels are home-made. Here the carpenters are fashioning
new furniture for the house ; the shipwrights are busy on new
boats; the potters mould pots; the metal-workers smelt
ingots of red gold. It is plain to see that Ti lived like a king
within his own boundaries. He makes an imposing figure, too,
in all these scenes, and, being represented about eight times as
large as his servants, sits and stands a giant among pigmies.
His wife (we must not forget that she was of the blood royal)
is as big as himself; and the children are depicted about half
the size of their parents. Curiously enough, Egyptian art never
outgrew this early naivete. The great man remained a big
man to the last days of the Ptolemies, and the fellah was
always a dwarfs

^ A more exhaustive study of the funerary texts has of late revolutionised
our interpretation of these, and similar sepulchral tableaux. The scenes
they represent are not, as was supposed when this book was first written,
mere episodes in the daily life of the deceased ; but are links in the ela-
borate story of his burial and his ghostly existence after de^th. The corn

SAKKARAH and MEMPHIS. 6i

Apart from these and one or two other mannerisms,
nothing can be more natural than the drawing, or more
spirited than the action, of all these men and animals. The
most difficult and transitory movements are expressed with
masterly certitude. The donkey kicks up his heels and brays
— the crocodile plunges — the wild duck rises on the wing ;
and the fleeting action is caught in each instance with a truth-
fulness that no Landseer could distance. The forms, which
have none of the conventional stiffness of later Egyptian work,
are modelled roundly and boldly, yet finished with exquisite
precision and delicacy. The colouring, however, is purely
decorative ; and being laid on in single tints, with no attempt
at gradation or shading, conceals rather than enhances the
beauty of the sculptures. These, indeed, are best seen where
the colour is entirely rubbed off. The tints are yet quite
brilliant in parts of the larger chamber ; but in the passage and
courtyard, which have been excavated only a few years and
are with difficulty kept clear from day to day, there is not a
vestige of colour left. This is the work of the sand — that
patient labourer whose office it is not only to preserve but to
destroy. The sand secretes and preserves the work of the
sculptor, but it effaces the work of the painter. In sheltered
places where it accumulates passively like a snow-drift, it brings
away only the surface-detail, leaving the under colours rubbed
and dim. But nothing, as I had occasion constantly to remark
in the course of the journey, removes colour so effectually as
sand which is exposed to the shifting action of the wind.

This tomb, as we have seen, consists of a portico, a court-
yard, two chambers, and a sepulchral vault ; but it also contains
a secret passage of the kind known as a ** serdab." These
" serdabs," which are constructed in the thickness of the walls
and have no entrances, seem to be peculiar to tombs of the
Ancient Empire {i.e. the period of the Pyramid Kings) ; and

is sown, reaped, and gathered in order that it may be ground and made
into funerary cakes ; the oxen, goats, gazelles, geese, and other live stock
are destined for sacrificial offerings ; the pots, and furniture, and household
goods are for burying with the mummy in his tomb ; and it is his " Ka,"
or ghostly double, that takes part in these various scenes, and not the
living man. [Note to Second Edition.]

62 SAKKArAH and MEMPHIS.

they contain statues of the deceased of all sizes, in wood,
limestone, and granite. Twenty statues of Ti were here found
immured in the serdab of his tomb, all broken save one — a
spirited figure in limestone, standing about seven feet high,
and now in the museum at Boulak. This
statue represents a fine young man in a white
tunic, and is evidently a portrait. The
features are regular ; the expression is good-
natured ; the whole tournure of the head is
1^ more Greek than Egyptian. The flesh is
painted of a yellowish brick tint, and the
figure stands in the usual hieratic attitude,
HEAD OF TI. with the left leg advanced, the hands clenched,

and the arms straightened close to the sides. One seems to
know Ti so well after seeing the wonderful pictures in his tomb,
that this charming statue interests one like the portrait of a
familiar friend.^

How pleasant it was, after being suffocated in the Serapeum
and broiled in the tomb of Ti, to return to Mariette's deserted
house, and eat our luncheon on the cool stone terrace that
looks northward over the desert ! Some wooden tables and
benches are hospitably left here for the accommodation of
travellers, and fresh water in ice-cold kuUehs is provided by the
old Arab guardian. The yards and offices at the back are
full of broken statues and fragments of inscriptions in red and
black granite. Two sphinxes from the famous avenue adorn
the terrace, and look down upon their half-buried companions
in the sand -hollow below. The yellow desert, barren and
undulating, with a line of purple peaks on the horizon, reaches
away into the far distance. To the right, under a jutting
ridge of rocky plateau not two hundred yards from the house,
yawns an open-mouthed black-looking cavern shored up with
heavy beams and approached by a slope of debris. This is

^ These statues were not mere portrait-statues ; but were designed as
bodily habitations for the incorporeal ghost, or " A'a," which it was supposed
needed a body, food, and drink, and must perish everlastingly if not duly
supplied with these necessaries. Hence the whole system of burying food-
ofiferings, furniture, stuffs, etc., in ancient Egyptian sepulchres. [Note to
Second Edition.]

SAKKArAH and MEMPHIS. 63

the forced entrance to the earlier vaults of the Serapeum, in
one of which was found a mummy described by Mariette as
that of an Apis, but pronounced by Brugsch to be the body of
Prince Kha-em-uas, governor of Memphis and the favourite
son of Rameses the Great.

This remarkable mummy, which looked as much like a bull
as a man, was found covered with jewels and gold chains
and precious amulets engraved with the name of Kha-em-uas,
and had on its face a golden mask ; all which treasures are now
to be seen in the Louvre. If it was the mummy of an Apis,
then the jewels with which it was adorned were probably
the offering of the prince at that time ruling in Memphis. If,
on the contrary, it was the mummy of a man, then, in order to
be buried in a place of peculiar sanctity, he probabl}^ usurped
one of the vaults prepared for the god. The question is a
curious one, and remains unsolved to this day ; but it could no
doubt be settled at a glance by Professor Owen.^

Far more startling, however, than the discovery of either
Apis or jewels, was the sight beheld by Mariette on first enter-
ing that long-closed sepulchral chamber. The mine being
sprung and the opening cleared, he went in alone ; and there,
on the thin layer of sand that covered the floor, he found the
footprints of the workmen who, 3700 years ^ before, had laid
that shapeless mummy in its tomb and closed the doors upon
it, as they believed, for ever.

And now — for the afternoon is already waning fast — the
donkeys are brought round, and we are told that it is time to
move on. We have the site of Memphis and the famous
prostrate colossus yet to see, and the long road lies all before
us. So back we ride across the desolate sands ; and with a
last, long, wistful glance at the pyramid in platforms, go down
from the territory of the dead into the land of the living.

There is a wonderful fascination about this pyramid. One
is never weary of looking at it — of repeating to one's self that
it is indeed the oldest building on the face of the whole earth.

1 The actual tomb of Prince Kha-em-uas has been found at Memphis
by M. Maspero, within the last three or four years. [Note to Second
Edition.]

2 The date is Mariette's.

64 SAKKArAH and MEMPHIS.

The king who erected it came to the throne, according to
Manetho, about eighty years after the death of Mena, the
founder of the Egyptian monarchy. All we have of him is his
pyramid ; all we know of him is his name. And these belong,
as it were, to the infancy of the human race. In dealing with
Egyptian dates, one is apt to think lightly of periods that count
only by centuries ; but it is a habit of mind which leads to
error, and it should be combated. The present writer found it
useful to be constantly comparing relative chronological eras ; as,
for instance, in realising the immense antiquity of the Sakkarah
pyramid, it is some help to remember that from the time when
it was built by King Ouenephes to the time when King Khufu
erected the great Pyramid of Ghizeh, there probably lies a
space of years equivalent to that which, in the history of Eng-
land, extends from the date of the Conquest to the accession of
George the Second.^ And yet Khufu himself — the Cheops of
the Greek historians — is but a shadowy figure hovering upon
the threshold of Egyptian history.

And now the desert is left behind, and we are nearing the
palms that lead to Memphis. We have of course been dipping
into Herodotus — every one takes Herodotus up the Nile — and
our heads are full of the ancient glories of this famous city.
We know that Mena turned the course of the river in order to
build it on this very spot, and that all the most illustrious
Pharaohs adorned it with temples, palaces, pylons, and precious
sculptures. We had read of the great Temple of Ptah that
Rameses the Great enriched with colossi of himself; and of
the sanctuary where Apis lived in state, taking his exercise in
a pillared courtyard where every column was a statue ; and of
the artificial lake, and the sacred groves, and the obelisks, and
all the wonders of a city which even in its later days was one
of the most populous in Egypt.

1 There was no worship of Apis in the days of King Ouenephes, nor,
indeed, until the reign of Kaiechos, more than one hundred and twenty
years after his time. But at some subsequent period of the Ancient Empire,
his pyramid was appropriated by the priests of Memphis for the mummies
of the Sacred Bulls. This, of course, was done before any of the known
Apis-catacombs were excavated. There are doubtless many more of these
catacombs yet undiscovered, nothing prior to the XVIIIth Dynasty having
yet been found.

SAKKARAH AND MEMPHIS. 65

Thinking over these things by the way, we agree that it is
well to have left Memphis till the last. We shall appreciate it
the better for having first seen that other city on the edge of the
desert to which, for nearly six thousand years, all Memphis
was quietly migrating, generation after generation. We know
now how poor folk laboured, and how great gentlemen amused
themselves, in those early days when there were hundreds of
country gentlemen like Ti, with town-houses at Memphis and
villas by the Nile. From the Serapeum, too, buried and
ruined as it is, one cannot but come away with a profound
impression of the splendour and power of a religion which could
command for its myths such faith, such homage, and such
public works.

And now we are once more in the midst of the palm-woods,
threading our way among the same mounds that we passed in
the morning. Presently those in front strike away from the
beaten road across a grassy flat to the right ; and the next
moment we are all gathered round the brink of a muddy pool
in the midst of which lies a shapeless block of blackened and
corroded limestone. This, it seems, is the famous prostrate
colossus of Rameses the Great, which belongs to the British
nation, but which the British Government is too economical to
remove.^ So here it lies, face downward ; drowned once a
year by the Nile ; visible only when the pools left by the
inundation have evaporated, and all the muddy hollows are
dried up. It is one of two which stood at the entrance to the
great Temple of Ptah ; and by those who have gone down into
the hollow and seen it from below in the dry season, it is
reported of as a noble and very beautiful specimen of one of
the best periods of Egyptian art.

Where, however, is the companion colossus ? Where is
the Temple itself? Where are the pylons, the obelisks, the
avenues of sphinxes ? Where, in short, is Memphis ?

The dragoman shrugs his shoulders and points to the
barren mounds among the palms.

They look like gigantic dust-heaps, and stand from thirty
to forty feet above the plain. Nothing grows upon them, save

1 This colossus is now raised upon a brick pedestal. [Note to Second
Edition.]

66 SAKKARAH AND MEMPHIS.

here and there a tuft of stunted palm ; and their substance
seems to consist chiefly of crumbled brick, broken potsherds,
and fragments of limestone. Some few traces of brick founda-
tions and an occasional block or two of shaped stone are to be
seen in places low down against the foot of one or two of the
mounds ; but one looks in vain for any sign which might
indicate the outline of a boundary wall, or the position of a
great public building.

And is this all ?

No — not quite all. There are some mud-huts yonder, in
among the trees ; and in front of one of these we find a
number of sculptured fragments — battered sphinxes, torsos
without legs, sitting figures without heads — in green, black,
and red granite. Ranged in an irregular semicircle on the
sward, they seem to sit in forlorn conclave, half solemn, half
ludicrous, with the goats browsing round, and the little Arab
children hiding behind them.

Near this, in another pool, lies another red granite colossus
— not the fellow to that which we saw first, but a smaller one
— also face downwards.

And this is all that remains of Memphis, eldest of cities — a
few huge rubbish-heaps, a dozen or so of broken statues, and a
name ! One looks round, and tries in vain to realise the lost
splendours of the place. Where is the Memphis that King
Mena came from Thinis to found — the Memphis of Ouenephes,
and Khufu, and Khafra, and all the early kings who built
their pyramid-tombs in the adjacent desert ? Where is the
Memphis of Herodotus, of Strabo, of 'Abd-el-Latif ? Where
are those stately ruins which, even in the middle ages, extended
over a space estimated at " half a day's journey in every direc-
tion " ? One can hardly believe that a great city ever flourished
on this spot, or understand how it should have been effaced
so utterly. Yet here it stood — here where the grass is green,
and the palms are growing, and the Arabs build their hovels
on the verge of the inundation. The great colossus marks the
site of the main entrance to the Temple of Ptah. It lies where
it fell, and no man has moved it. That tranquil sheet of
palm-fringed back-water, beyond which we see the village of
Mitrahineh and catch a distant glimpse of the pyramids of

SAKKARAH AND MEMPHIS. 67

Ghizeh, occupies the basin of a vast artificial lake excavated
by Mena. The very name of Memphis survives in the dialect
of the fellah, who calls the place of the mounds Tell Monf ^ —
just as Sakkarah fossilises the name of Sokari, one of the special
denominations of the Memphite Osiris.

No capital in the world dates so far back as this, or kept its
place in history so long. Founded four thousand years before
our era, it beheld the rise and fall of thirty-one dynasties ; it
survived the rule of the Persian, the Greek, and the Roman ; it
was, even in its decadence, second only to Alexandria in popu-
lation and extent ; and it continued to be inhabited up to the
time of the Arab invasion. It then became the quarry from
which Fostat (Old Cairo) was built ; and as the new city rose
on the eastern bank, the people of Memphis quickly abandoned
their ancient capital to desolation and decay.

Still a vast field of ruins remained. 'Abd-el-Latif, writing
at the commencement of the thirteenth century, speaks with
enthusiasm of the colossal statues and lions, the enormous
pedestals, the archways formed of only three stones, the bas-
reliefs and other wonders that were yet to be seen upon the
spot. Marco Polo, if his wandering tastes had led him to the
Nile, might have found some of the palaces and temples of
Memphis still standing; and Sandys, w^ho in A.D. 16 10 went
at least as far south of Cairo as Kafr el lyat, says that " up the
River for twenty miles space there was nothing but mines."
Since then, however, the very " ruines " have vanished ; the
palms have had time to grow ; and modern Cairo has doubtless
absorbed all the building material that remained from the
middle ages.

Memphis is a place to read about, and think about, and
remember ; but it is a disappointing place to see. To miss it,
however, would be to miss the first link in the whole chain of
monumental history which unites the Egypt of antiquity with
the world of to-day. Those melancholy mounds and that
heron-haunted lake must be seen, if only that they may take
their due place in the picture-gallery of one's memory.

1 Tell: Arabic for Mound. Many of these mounds preserve the
ancient names of the cities they entomb ; as Tell Basta (Bubastis) ; Kom
Ombo (Ombos) ; etc. etc. Tell and Kom are synonymous terms.

SAKKARAH AND MEMPHIS.

It had been a long day's work, but it came to an end at
last ; and as we trotted our donkeys back towards the river, a
gorgeous sunset was crimsoning the palms and pigeon-towers
of Bedreshayn. Everything seemed now to be at rest. A
buffalo, contemplatively chewing the cud, lay close against the
path and looked at us without moving. The children and
pigeons were gone to bed. The pots had baked in the sun and
been taken in long since. A tiny column of smoke went up
here and there from amid the clustered huts ; but there was
scarcely a moving creature to be seen. Presently we passed a
tall, beautiful fellah woman standing grandly by the wayside,
with her veil thrown back and falling in long folds to her feet.
She smiled, put out her hand, and murmured " Bakhshish !"
Her fingers were covered with rings, and her arms with silver
bracelets. She begged because to beg is honourable, and
customary, and a matter of inveterate habit ; but she evidently
neither expected nor needed the bakhshish she condescended
to ask for.

A few moments more and the sunset has faded, the village
is left behind, the last half-mile of plain is trotted over. And
now — hungry, thirsty, dusty, worn out with new knowledge,
new impressions, new ideas — we are once more at home and at
rest.

MITRAHiXEH.

CHAPTER V.

BEDRESHAYN TO MINIEH.

IT is the rule of the Nile to hurry up the river as fast as
possible, leaving the ruins to be seen as the boat comes back
with the current ; but this, like many another canon, is by no
means of universal application. The traveller who starts late
in the season has, indeed, no other course open to him. He
must press on with speed to the end of his journey, if he would
get back again at low Nile without being irretrievably stuck on
a sand-bank till the next inundation floats him off again. But
for those who desire not only to see the monuments, but to
follow, however superficially, the course of Egyptian history as
it is handed down through Egyptian art, it is above all things
necessary to start early and to see many things by the way.

For the history of ancient Egypt goes against the stream.
The earliest monuments lie between Cairo and Siout, while the
latest temples to the old gods are chiefly found in Nubia.
Those travellers, therefore, who hurry blindly forward with or
without a wind, now sailing, now tracking, now punting, passing
this place by night, and that by day, and never resting till they
have gained the farthest point of their journey, begin at the
wrong end and see all their sights in precisely inverse order.
Memphis and Sakkarah and the tombs of Beni Hassan should
undoubtedly be visited on the way up. So should El Kab.
and Tell el Amarna, and the oldest parts of Karnak and Luxor,
It is not necessary to delay long at any of these places. They
may be seen cursorily on the way up, and be more carefully
Studied on the way down ; but they should be seen as they

70 BEDRESHAYN TO MINIEH.

come, no matter at what trifling cost of present delay, and
despite any amount of ignorant opposition. For in this way
only is it possible to trace the progression and retrogression of
the arts from the pyramid-builders to the Caesars ; or to under-
stand at the time, and on the spot, in what order that vast
and august procession of dynasties swept across the stage of
history.

For ourselves, as will presently be seen, it happened that we
could carry only a part of this programme into effect ; but that
part, happily, was the most important. We never ceased to
congratulate ourselves on having made acquaintance with the
Pyramids of Ghizeh and Sakkarah before seeing the tombs of
the kings at Thebes ; and I feel that it is impossible to over-
estim.ate the advantage of studying the sculptures of the tomb
of Ti before one's taste is brought into contact with the debased
style of Denderah and Esneh. We began the Great Book, in
short, as it always should be begun — at its first page ; thereby
acquiring just that necessary insight without which many an
after-chapter must have lost more than half its interest.

If I seem to insist upon this point, it is because things con-
trary to custom need a certain amount of insistance, and are
sure to be met by opposition. No dragoman, for example,
could be made to understand the importance of historical
sequence in a matter of this kind ; especially in the case of a
contract trip. To him, Khufu, Rameses, and the Ptolemies are
one. As for the monuments, they are all ancient Egyptian,
and one is just as odd and unintelligible as another. He can-
not quite understand why travellers come so far and spend so
much money to look at them ; but he sets it down to a habit
of harmless curiosity — by which he profits.

The truth is, however, that the mere sight-seeing of the Nile
demands some little reading and organising, if only to be
enjoyed. We cannot all be profoundly learned ; but we can
at least do our best to understand what we see — to get rid of
obstacles — to put the right thing in the right place. For the
land of Egypt is, as I have said, a Great Book — not very easy
reading, perhaps, under any circumstances ; but at all events
quite difficult enough already without the added puzzlement of
being read backward.s.

BEDRESHAYN TO MINIEH. 71

And now our next point along the river, as well as our next
link in the chain of early monuments, was Beni Hassan, with its
famous rock -cut tombs of the Xllth dynasty ; and Beni
Hassan was still more than a hundred and forty-five miles dis-
tant. We ought to have gone on again directly — to have
weighed anchor and made a few miles that very evening on
returning to the boats ; but we insisted on a second day in the
same place. This, too, with the favourable wind still blowing.
It was against all rule and precedent. The captain shook his
head, the dragoman remonstrated, in vain.

" You will come to learn the value of a wind, when you
have been longer on the Nile," said the latter, with that air of
melancholy resignation which he always assumed when not
allowed to have his own way. He was an indolent good-
tempered man, spoke English fairly well, and was perfectly
manageable ; but that air of resignation came to be aggravating
in time.

The M. B.'s being of the same mind, however, we had our
second day, and spent it at Memphis. We ought to have
crossed over to Turra, and have seen the great quarries from
which the casing-stones of the Pyramids came, and all the finer
limestone with which the temples and palaces of Memphis
were built. But the whole mountain-side seemed as if glowing
at a white heat on the opposite side of the river, and we said
we would put off Turra till our return. So we went our own
way ; and Alfred shot pFgeons ; and the Writer sketched
Mitrahineh, and the palms, and the sacred lake of Mena ; and
the rest grubbed among the mounds for treasure, finding many
curious fragments of glass and pottery, and part of an engraved
bronze Apis ; and we had a green, tranquil, lovely day, barren
of incident, but very pleasant to remember.

The good wind continued to blow all that night ; but fell
at sunrise, precisely when we were about to start. The river
now stretched away before us, smooth as glass, and there was
nothing for it, said Reis Hassan, but tracking. We had heard
of tracking often enough since coming to Egypt, but without
having any definite idea of the process. Coming on deck,
however, before breakfast, we found nine of our poor fellows
harnessed to a rope like barge-horse.'?, towing the huge boat

72 BEDRESHAYN TO MINI EH.

against the current. Seven of the M. B.'s crew, similarly-
harnessed, followed at a {&\^ yards' distance. The two ropes
met and crossed and dipped into the water together. Already
our last night's mooring-place was out of sight, and the
Pyramid of Ouenephes stood up amid its lesser brethren on
the edge of the desert, as if bidding us good-bye. But the
sight of the trackers jarred, somehow,. with the placid beauty
of the picture. We got used to it, as one gets used to every-
thing, in time ; but it looked like slaves' work, and shocked our
English notions disagreeably.

That morning, still tracking, we pass the Pyramids of
Dahshur. A dilapidated brick pyramid standing in the midst
of them looks like an aiguille of black rock thrusting itself up
through the limestone bed of the desert. Palms line the bank
and intercept the view ; but we catch flitting glimpses here and
there, looking out especially for that dome-like pyramid which
we observed the other day from Sakkarah. Seen in the full
sunlight, it looks larger and whiter, and more than ever like
the roof of the old Palais de Justice far away in Paris.

Thus the morning passes. We sit on deck writing letters ;
reading ; watching the sunny river-side pictures that glide by
at a foot's pace and are so long in sight. Palm-groves, sand-
banks, patches of fuzzy- headed dura^ and fields of some yellow-
flowering herb, succeed each other. A boy plods along the
bank, leading a camel. They go slowly ; but they soon leave
us behind. A native boat meets us, floating down side-wise
with the current. A girl comes to the water's edge with a
great empty jar on her head, and waits to fill it till the trackers
have gone by. The pigeon-towers of a mud-village peep above
a clump of lebbek trees, a quarter of a mile inland. Here a
solitary brown man, with onl}- a felt skull-cap on his head and
a slip of scanty tunic fastened about his loins, works a shadfif,^

1 Sorghutn vulgajr.

2 The Shaduf has been so well described by the Rev. F. B. Zincke,
that I cannot do better than quote him verbatim : — " Mechanically, the
Shadoof is an application of the lever. In no machine which the wit of
man, aided by the accumulation of science, has since invented, is the
result produced so great in proportion to the degree of power employed.
The level of the Shadoof is a long stout pole poised on a prop. The pole
i? at right angles to the river. A large lump of clay from the spot i?

BEDRESHAYN TO MINI EH.

stooping and rising, stooping and rising, with the regularity of
a pendulum. It is the same machine which we shall see by
and by depicted in the tombs at Thebes ; and the man is so

THE SHADOf.

evidently an ancient Egyptian, that we find ourselves wonder-
ing how he escaped being mummified four or five thousand
years ago.

appended to the inland end. To the river end is suspended a goat-skin
bucket. This is the whole apparatus. The man who is working it stands
on the edge of the river. Before him is a hole full of water fed from the
passing stream. When working the machine, he takes hold of the cord by
which the empty bucket is suspended, and bending down, by the mere
weight of his shoulders dips it in the water. His effort to rise gives the
bucket full of water an upward cant, which, with the aid of the equipoising
lump of clay at the other end of the pole, lifts it to a trough into which, as
it tijts on one side, it empties its contents. What he has done has rais^c^

74 BEDRESHAYN TO MINIEH.

By and by, a little breeze springs up. The men drop the
rope and jump on board — the big sail is set — the breeze
freshens — and away we go again, as merrily as the day we left
Cairo. Towards sunset we see a strange object, like a giant
obelisk broken off half-way, standing up on the western bank
against an orange-gold sky. This is the Pyramid of Meydflm,
commonly called the False Pyramid. It looks quite near the
bank ; but this is an effect of powerful light and shadow, for it
lies back at least four miles from the river. That night, having
sailed on till past nine o'clock, we moor about a mile from
Beni Suef, and learn with some surprise that a man must be
despatched to the governor of the town for guards. Not that
anything ever happened to anybody at Beni Suef, says
Talhamy ; but that the place is supposed not to have a first-
rate reputation. If we have guards, we at all events make the
governor responsible for our safety and the safety of our posses-
sions. So the guards are sent for ; and being posted on the
bank, snore loudly all night long, just outside our windows.

Meanwhile the wind shifts round to the south, and next
morning it blows full in our faces. The men, however, track
up to Beni Suef to a point where the buildings come down to
the water's edge and the towing-path ceases ; and there we
lay-to for awhile among a fleet of filthy native boats, close to
the landing-place.

The approach to Beni Suef is rather pretty. The Khedive
has an Italian-looking villa here, which peeps up white and
dazzling from the midst of a thickly-wooded park. The town
lies back a little from the river. A few coffee-houses and a
kind of promenade face the landing-place ; and a mosque built
to the verge of the bank stands out picturesquely against the
bend of the river.

And now it is our object to turn that corner, so as to get
into a better position for starting when the wind drops. The

the water six or seven feet above the level of the river. But if the river
has subsided twelve or fourteen feet, it will require another Shadoof to be
worked in the trough into which the water of the first has been brought.
If the river has sunk still more, a third will be required before it can be
lifted to the top of the bank, so as to enable it to flow off to the fields that
require irrigation." — E^ypt of the Pharaohs and the Khedive, p. 445 et seq.

BEDRESHAYN TO MINIEH. 75

current here runs deep and strong, so that we have both wind
and water dead against us. Half our men clamber round
the corner like cats, carrying the rope with them ; the rest keep
the dahabeeyah off the bank with punting poles. The rope
strains — a pole breaks — we struggle forward a few feet, and
can get no farther. Then the men rest awhile ; try again ;
and are again defeated. So the fight goes on. The promenade
and the windows of the mosque become gradually crowded
with lookers-on. Some three or four cloaked and bearded men
have chairs brought, and sit gravely smoking their chibouques
on the bank above, enjoying the entertainment. Meanwhile
the water-carriers come and go, filling their goat-skins at the
landing-place ; donkeys and camels are brought down to drink ;
girls in dark blue gowns and coarse black veils come with
huge water-jars laid sidevvise upon their heads, and, having
filled and replaced them upright, walk away with stately steps,
as if each ponderous vessel were a crown.

So the day passes. Driven back again and again, but still
resolute, our sailors, by dint of sheer doggedness, get us round
the bad corner at last. The Bagstones follows suit a little
later ; and we both moor about a quarter of a mile above the
town. Then follows a night of adventures. Again our guards
sleep profoundly ; but the bad characters of Beni Suef are
very wide awake. One gentleman, actuated no doubt by the
friendliest motives, pays a midnight visit to the Bagstones ;
but being detected, chased, and fired at, escapes by jumping
overboard. Our turn comes about two hours later, when the
Writer, happening to be awake, hears a man swim softly round
the Philae. To strike a light and frighten everybody into sudden
activity is the work of a moment. The whole boat is instantly
in an uproar. Lanterns are lighted on deck ; a patrol of sailors
is set ; Talhamy loads his gun ; and the thief slips away in
the dark, like a fish.

The guards, of course, slept sweetly through it all. Honest
fellows ! They were paid a shilling a night to do it, and they
had nothing on their minds.

Having lodged a formal complaint next morning against
the inhabitants of the town, we received a visit from a sallow
personage clad in a long black robe and a voluminous vvhite

nd BEDRESHAYN TO MINIEH.

turban. This was the Chief of the Guards. He smoked a
great many pipes ; drank numerous cups of coffee ; hstened to
all we had to say ; looked wise ; and finally suggested that the
number of our guards should be doubled.

I ventured to object that if they slept unanimously, forty
would not be of much more use than four. Whereupon he
rose, drew himself to his full height, touched his beard, and
said with a magnificent melodramatic air : — " If they sleep,
they shall be bastinadoed till they die !"

And now our good luck seemed to have deserted us. For
three days and nights the adverse wind continued to blow with
such force that the men could not even track against it.
Moored under that dreary bank, we saw our ten days' start
melting away, and could only make the best of our misfortunes.
Happily the long island close by, and the banks on both sides
of the river, were populous with sand-grouse ; so Alfred went
out daily with his faithful George and his unerring gun, and
brought home game in abundance, while we took long walks,
sketched boats and camels, and chaffered with native women
for silver torques and bracelets. These torques (in Arabic
TSk) are tubular but massive, penannular, about as thick as
one's little finger, and finished with a hook at one end and a
twisted loop at the other. The girls would sometimes put
their veils aside and make a show of bargaining ; but more
frequently, after standing for a moment with great wondering
black velvety eyes staring shyly into ours, they would take
fright like a troop of startled deer, and vanish with shrill cries,
half of laughter, half of terror.

At Beni Suef we encountered our first sand-storm. It
came down the river about noon, showing like a yellow fog on
the horizon, and rolling rapidly before the wind. It tore the
river into angry waves, and blotted out the landscape as it
came. The distant hills disappeared first ; then the palms
beyond the island ; then the boats close by. Another second,
and the air was full of sand. The whole surface of the plain
seemed in motion. The banks rippled. The yellow dust
poured down through every rift and cleft in hundreds of tiny
cataracts. But it was a sight not to be looked upon with
impunity. Hair, eyes, mouth, ears, were instantly filled, and

BEDRESHAYN TO MINIEH. 77

we were driven to take refuge in the saloon. Here, although
every window and door had been shut before the storm came,
the sand found its way in clouds. Books, papers, carpets, were
covered with it ; and it settled again as fast as it was cleared
away. This lasted just one hour, and was followed by a burst
of heavy rain ; after which the sky cleared and we had a lovely
afternoon. From this time forth, we saw no more rain in
Egypt.

At length, on the morning of the fourth day after our first
appearance at Beni Suef and the seventh since leaving Cairo,
the wind veered round again to the north, and we once more
got under way. It was delightful to see the big sail again
towering up overhead, and to hear the swish of the water under
the cabin windows ; but we were still one hundred and nine
miles from Rhoda, and we knew that nothing but an extraor-
dinary run of luck could possibly get us there by the twenty-
third of the month, with time to see Beni Hassan on the way.
Meanwhile, however, we make fair progress, mooring at sunset
when the wind falls, about three miles north of Bibbeh. Next
day, by help of the same light breeze which again springs up
a little after dawn, we go at a good pace between flat banks
fringed here and there with palms, and studded with villages
more or less picturesque. There is not much to see, and yet
one never wants for amusement. Now we pass an island of
sand-bank covered with snow-white paddy-birds, which rise
tumultuously at our approach. Next comes Bibbeh perched
high along the edge of the precipitous bank, its odd-looking
Coptic Convent roofed all over with little mud domes, like a
cluster of earth-bubbles. By and by we pass a deserted sugar-
factory, with shattered windows and a huge, gaunt, blackened
chimney, worthy of Birmingham or Sheffield. And now we
catch a glimpse of the railway, and hear the last scream of a
departing engine. At night, we moor within sight of the
factory chimneys and hydraulic tubes of Magagha, and next
day get on nearly to Golosaneh, which is the last station-town
before Minieh.

It is now only too clear that we must give up all thought
of pushing on to Beni Hassan before the rest of the party shall
come on board. We have reached the evening of our ninth day ;

BEDRESHAYN TO MINIEH.

we are still forty-eight miles from Rhoda ; and another adverse
wind might again delay us indefinitely on the way. All risks
taken into account, we decide to put off our meeting till the
twenty-fourth, and transfer the appointment to Minieh ; thus
giving ourselves time to track all the way in case of need. So
an Arabic telegram is concocted, and our fleetest runner starts
off with it to Golosaneh before the office closes for the night.

The breeze, however, does not fail, but comes back next
morning with the dawn. Having passed Golosaneh, we come
to a wide reach in the river, at which point we are honoured
by a visit from a Moslem Santon of peculiar sanctity, named

" Holy Sheykh Cotton." Now
Holy Sheykh Cotton, who is a
well-fed, healthy -looking young
man of about thirty, makes his
first appearance swimming, with
his garments twisted into a huge
turban on the top of his head, and
only his chin above water. Hav-
ing made his toilet in the small
boat, he presents himself on deck,
and receives an enthusiastic wel-
come. Reis Hassan hugs him —
the pilot kisses him — the sailors
come up one by one, bringing little
tributes of tobacco and piastres
which he accepts with the air of a
Pope receiving Peter's Pence. All dripping as he is, and smiling
like an affable Triton, he next proceeds to touch the tiller,
the ropes, and the ends of the yards, " in order," says Talhamy,
"to make them holy;" and then, with some kind of final
charm or muttered incantation, he plunges into the river
again, and swims off to repeat the same performance on board
the Bagstones.

From this moment the prosperity of our voyage is assured.
The captain goes about with a smile on his stern face, and the
crew look as happy as if we had given them a guinea. For
nothing can go wrong with a dahabeeyah that has been " made
holy " by Holy Sheykh Cotton. We are certain now to have

' HOLY SHEYKH COTTON.

BEDRESHAYN TO MINIEH. 7q

favourable winds — to pass the Cataract without accident — to
come back in health and safety, as we set out. But what, it
may be asked, has Holy Sheykh Cotton done to make his
blessing so efficacious ? He gets money in plenty ; he fasts
no oftener than other Mohammedans ; he has two wives ; he
never does a stroke of work ; and he looks the picture of sleek
prosperity. Yet he is a saint of the first water ; and when he
dies, miracles will be performed at his tomb, and his eldest son
will succeed him in the business.

We had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with a good
many saints in the course of our Eastern travels ; but I do not
know that we ever found they had done anything to merit the
position. One very horrible old man named Sheykh Saleem
has, it is true, been sitting on a dirt heap near Farshut,
unclothed, unwashed, unshaven, for the last half- century or
more, never even lifting his hand to his mouth to feed himself;
but Sheykh Cotton had gone to no such pious lengths, and was
not even dirty.

We are by this time drawing towards a range of yellow
cliffs that have long been visible on the horizon, and which
figure in the maps as Gebel et Tayr. The Arabian desert has
been closing up on the eastern bank for some time past, and
now rolls on in undulating drifts to the water's edge. Yellow
boulders crop out here and there above the mounded sand,
which looks as if it might cover many a forgotten temple.
Presently the clay bank is gone, and a low barrier of limestone
rock, black and shiny next the water-line, has taken its place.
And now, a long way ahead, where the river bends and the
level cliffs lead on into the far distance, a little brown speck is
pointed out as the Convent of the Pulley. Perched on the
brink of the precipice, it looks no bigger than an ant-heap.
We had heard much of the fine view to be seen from the plat-
form on which this Convent is built, and it had originally
entered into our programme as a place to be visited on the
way. But Minieh has to be gained now at all costs ; so this
project has to be abandoned with a sigh.

And now the rocky barrier rises higher, quarried here and
there in dazzling gaps of snow-white cuttings. And now the
Convent shows clearer ; and the cliffs become loftier ; and the

8o, BEDRESHAYN TO MINIEH.

bend in the river is reached ; and a long perspecti e of flat-
topped precipice stretches away into the dim distance.

It is a day of saints and swimmers. As the dahabeeyah
approaches, a brown poll is seen bobbing up and down in the
water a few hundred yards ahead. Then one, two, three bronze
figures dash down a steep ravine below the Convent walls,
and plunge into the river — a shrill chorus of voices, growing
momentarily more audible, is borne upon the wind — and in a
few minutes the boat is beset by a shoal of mendicant monks
vociferating with all their might "Ajia Christian ya Hawadji ! —
Alia Christian ya Hazvadji I" (I am a Christian, oh traveller!)
As these are only Coptic monks and not Moslem santons, the
sailors, half in rough play, half in earnest, drive them off with
punting poles ; and only one shivering, streaming object,
wrapped in a borrowed blanket, is allowed to come on board.
He is a fine shapely man, aged about forty, with splendid eyes
and teeth, a well-formed head, a skin the colour of a copper
beech-leaf, and a face expressive of such ignorance, timidity,
and half-savage watchfulness as makes one's heart ache.

And this is a Copt ; a descendant of the true Egyptian
stock ; one of those whose remote ancestors exchanged the
worship of the old gods for Christianity under the rule of
Theodosius some fifteen hundred years ago, and whose blood
is supposed to be purer of Mohammedan intermixture than
any in Egypt. Remembering these things, it is impossible to
look at him without a feeling of profound interest. It may be
only fancy, yet I think I see in him a different type to that of
the Arab — a something, however slight, which recalls the
sculptured figures in the tomb of Ti.

But while we are thinking about his magnificent pedigree,
our poor Copt's teeth are chattering piteously. So we give
him a shilling or two for the sake of all that he represents in
the history of the world ; and with these, and the donation of
an empty bottle, he swims away contented, crying again and
again: — " Ketther-khdyrak Sittdt ! Ketther - khdyrak keteer !"
(Thank you, ladies! thank you much!")

And now the Convent with its clustered domes is passed
and left behind. The rock here is of the same rich tawny hue
as at Turra, and the horizontal strata of which it is composed

BEDRESHAYN TO MINIEH, ti

fcave evidently been deposited by water. That the Nile must
at some remote time have flowed here at an immensely higher
level seems also probable ; for the whole face of the range is
honeycombed and water-worn for miles in succession. Seeing
how these fantastic forms — arched, and clustered, and pendent
— resemble the recessed ornamentation of Saracenic buildings,
I could not help wondering whether some early Arab architect
might not once upon a time have taken a hint from some such
rocks as these.

Thus the day wanes, and the level cliffs keep with us all
the way — now breaking into little lateral valleys and culs-de-sac
in which nestle clusters of tiny huts and green patches of lupin ;
now plunging; sheer down into the river ; now receding inland
and leaving space for a belt of cultivated soil and a fringe of
feathery palms. By and by comes the sunset, when every cast
shadow in the recesses of the cliffs turns to pure violet ; and
the face of the rock glows with a ruddier gold ; and the palms
on the western bank stand up in solid bronze against a crimson
horizon. Then the sun dips, and instantly the whole range of
cliffs turns to a dead, greenish grey, while the sky above and
behind them is as suddenly suffused with pink. When this
effect has lasted for something like eight minutes, a vast arch
of deep blue shade, about as large in diameter as a rainbow,
creeps slowly up the eastern horizon, and remains distinctly
visible as long as the pink, flush against which it is defined yet
lingers in the sky. Finally the flush fades out ; the blue
becomes uniform ; the stars begin to show ; and only a broad
glow in the west marks which way the sun went down. About
a quarter of an hour later comes the after-glow, when for a few
minutes the sky is filled with a soft, magical light, and the
twilight gloom lies warm upon the landscape. When this goes,
it is night ; but still one long beam of light streams up in the
track of the sun, and remains visible for more than two hours
after the darkness has closed in.

Such is the sunset we see this evening as we approach
Minieh ; and such is the sunset we are destined to see with
scarcely a shade of difference at the same hour and under
precisely the same conditions for many a month to come. It
is very beautiful, very tranquil, full of wonderful light and most

82 BEDRESHAYN TO MINIEH.

subtle gradations of tone, and attended by certain phenomena
of which I shall have more to say presently ; but it lacks the
variety and gorgeousness of our northern skies. Nor, given
the dry atmosphere of Egypt, can it be otherwise. Those
who go up the Nile expecting, as I did, to see magnificent
Turneresque pageants of purple, and flame -colour, and gold,
will be disappointed as I was. For your Turneresque pageant
cannot be achieved without such accessories of cloud and vapour
as in Nubia are wholly unknown, and in Egypt are of the rarest
occurrence. Once, and only once, in the course of an unusually
protracted sojourn on the river, had we the good fortune to
witness a grand display of the kind ; and then we had been
nearly three months in the dahabeeyah.

Meanwhile, however, we never weary of these stainless
skies, but find in them, evening after evening, fresh depths of
beauty and repose. As for that strange transfer of colour from
the mountains to the sky, we had repeatedly observed it while
travelling in the Dolomites the year before, and had always
found it take place, as now, at the moment of the sun's first dis-
appearance. But what of this mighty after-shadow, climbing halt
the heavens and bringing night with it ? Can it be the rising
Shadow of the World projected on the one horizon as the sun
sinks on the other ? I leave the problem for wiser travellers to
solve. We had not science enough amongst us to account for it.
That same evening, just as the twilight came on, we saw
another wonder — the new moon on the first night of her first
quarter ; a perfect orb, dusky, distinct, and outlined all round
with a thread of light no thicker than a hair. Nothing could
be more brilliant than this tiny rim of flashing silver ; while
every detail of the softly-glowing globe within its compass
was clearly visible. Tycho with its vast crater showed like a
volcano on a raised map ; and near the edge of the moon's
surface, where the light and shadow met, keen sparkles of
mountain-summits catching the light and relieved against the
dusk, were to be seen by the naked eye. Two or three evenings
later, however, when the silver ring was changed to a broad
crescent, the unilluminated part was as it were extinguished,
and could no longer be discerned even by help of a glass.

The wind having failed as usual at sunset, the crew set to

BEDRESHAYN TO MINIEH. 83

work with a will and punted the rest of the way, so bringing
us to Minieh about nine that night. Next morning we found
ourselves moored close under the Khedive's summer palace —
so close that one could have tossed a pebble against the lattice
v/indows of his Highness's hareem. A fat gate-keeper sat
outside in the sun, smoking his morning chibouque and gossip-
ing with the passers-by. A narrow promenade scantily planted
with sycamore figs ran between the palace and the river. A
steamer or two, and a crowd of native boats, lay moored under
the bank ; and yonder, at the farther end of the promenade, a
minaret and a cluster of whitewashed houses showed which
way one must turn in going to the town.

It chanced to be market-day ; so we saw Minieh under its
best aspect, than which nothing could well be more squalid,
dreary, and depressing. It was like a town dropped unex-
pectedly into the midst of a ploughed field ; the streets being
mere trodden lanes of mud dust, and the houses a succession
of windowless mud prisons with their backs to the thoroughfare.
The Bazaar, which consists of two or three lanes a little wider
than the rest, is roofed over here and there with rotting palm-
rafters and bits of tattered matting ; while the market is held
in a space of waste ground outside the town. The former,
with its little cupboard-like shops in which the merchants sit
cross-legged like shabby old idols in shabby old shrines — the
ill-furnished shelves — the familiar Manchester goods — the
gaudy native stuffs — the old red saddles and faded rugs
hanging up for sale — the smart Greek stores where Bass's ale,
claret, curagoa, Cyprus, Vermouth, cheese, pickles, sardines,
Worcester sauce, blacking, biscuits, preserved meats, candles,
cigars, matches, sugar, salt, stationery, fireworks, jams, and patent
medicines can all be bought at one fell swoop — the native
cook's shop exhaling savoury perfumes of Kebabs and lentil
soup, and presided over by an Abyssinian Soyer blacker than
the blackest historical personage ever was painted — the surging,
elbowing, clamorous crowd — the donkeys, the camels, the
street-cries, the chatter, the dust, the flies, the fleas, and the
dogs, all put us in mind of the poorer quarters of Cairo. In
the market, it is even worse. Here are hundreds of country
folk sitting on the ground behind their baskets of fruits and

84 BEDRESHAYN TO MINIEH.

vegetables. Some have eggs, butter, and buffalo -cream for
sale, while others sell sugar-canes, limes, cabbages, tobacco,
barley, dried lentils, split beans, maize, wheat, and dura. The
women go to and fro with bouquets of live poultry. The
chickens scream ; the sellers rave ; the buyers bargain at the
tops of their voices ; the dust flies in clouds ; the sun pours
down floods of light and heat ; you can scarcely hear yourself
speak ; and the crowd is as dense as that other crowd which
at this very moment, on this very Christmas Eve, is circulating
among the alleys of Leadenhall Market.

The things were very cheap. A hundred eggs cost about
fourteen-pence in English money ; chickens sold for fivepence
each; pigeons from twopence to twopence - halfpenny ; and
fine live geese for two shillings a head. The turkeys, how-
ever, which were large and excellent, were priced as high as
three-and-sixpence ; being about half as much as one pays in
Middle and Upper Egypt for a lamb. A good sheep may be
bought for sixteen shillings or a pound. The M. B.'s, who had
no dragoman and did their own marketing, were very busy
here, laying in stores of fresh provision, bargaining fluently in
Arabic, and escorted by a bodyguard of sailors.

A solitary dom palm, the northernmost of its race and the
first specimen one meets with on the Nile, grows in a garden
adjoining this market-place : but we could scarcely see it for
the blinding dust. Now, a dom palm is just the sort of tree
that De Wint should have painted — odd, angular, with long
forked stems, each of which terminates in a shock-headed
crown of stiff finger-like fronds shading heavy clusters of big
shiny nuts about the size of Jerusalem artichokes. It is, I
suppose, the only nut in the world of which one throws away
the kernel and eats the shell ; but the kernel is as hard as
marble, while the shell is fibrous, and tastes like stale ginger-
bread. The dom palm must bifurcate, for bifurcation is the
law of its being ; but I could never discover whether there was
any fixed limit to the number of stems into which it might
subdivide. At the same time, I do not remember to have
seen any with less than two heads or more than six.

Coming back through the town, we were accosted by a
withered one-eyed hag like a re -animated mummy, who

BEDRESHAYN TO MINIEH. 85

offered to tell our fortunes. Before her lay a dirty rag of
handkerchief full of shells, pebbles, and chips of broken glass
and pottery. Squatting toad-like under a sunny bit of wall,
the lower part of her face closely veiled, her skinny arms
covered with blue and green glass bracelets and her fingers
with misshapen silver rings, she hung over these treasures ;
shook, mixed, and interrogated them with all the fervour of
divination ; and delivered a string of the prophecies usually
forthcoming on these occasions.

" You have a friend far away, and your friend is thinking
of you. There is good fortune in store for you ; and money
coming to you ; and pleasant news on the way. You will soon
receive letters in which there will be something to vex you,
but more to make you glad. Within thirty days you will
unexpectedly meet one whom you dearly love," etc. etc. etc.

It was just the old familiar story retold in Arabic, without
even such variations as might have been expected from the
lips of an old fellaha born and bred in a provincial town of
Middle Egypt.

It may be that ophthalmia especially prevailed in this part
of the country, or that being brought unexpectedly into the
midst of a large crowd, one observed the people more narrowly,
but I certainly never saw so many one-eyed human beings as
that morning at Minieh. There must have been present in
the streets and market-place from ten to twelve thousand
natives of all ages, and I believe it is no exaggeration to say
that at least every twentieth person, down to little toddling
children of three and four years of age, was blind of an eye.
Not being a particularly well-favoured race, this defect added
the last touch of repulsiveness to faces already sullen, ignorant,
and unfriendly. A more unprepossessing population I would
never wish to see — the men half stealthy, half insolent ; the
women bold and fierce ; the children filthy, sickly, stunted, and
stolid. Nothing in provincial Egypt is so painful to witness
as the neglected condition of very young children. Those
belonging to even the better class are for the most part shabbily
clothed and of more than doubtful cleanliness ; while the off-
spring of the very poor are simply encrusted with dirt and
sores, and swarming with vermin. It is at first hard to believe

86 BEDRESHAYN TO MINIEH.

that the parents of these unfortunate babies err, not from
cruelty, but through sheer ignorance and superstition. Yet so
it is ; and the time when these people can be brought to com-
prehend the most elementary principles of sanitary reform is
yet far distant. To wash young children is injurious to health ;
therefore the mothers suffer them to fall into a state of personal
uncleanliness which is alone enough to engender disease. To
brush away the flies that beset their eyes is impious ; hence
ophthalmia and various kinds of blindness. I have seen infants
lying in their mothers' arms with six or eight flies in each
eye. I have seen the little helpless hands put down reprov-
ingly, if they approached the seat of annoyance. I have seen
children of four and five years old with the surface of one or
both eyes eaten away ; and others with a large fleshy lump
growing out where the pupil had been destroyed. Taking
these things into account, the wonder is, after all, not that
three children should die in Egypt out of every five — not that
each twentieth person in certain districts should be blind, or
partially blind ; but that so many as forty per cent of the
whole infant population should actually live to grow up, and
that ninety-five per cent should enjoy the blessing of sight.
For my own part, I had not been many weeks on the Nile
before I began systematically to avoid going about the native
towns whenever it was practicable to do so. That I may so
have lost an opportunity of now and then seeing more of the
street-life of the people is very probable ; but such outside
glimpses are of little real value, and I at all events escaped the
sight of much poverty, sickness, and squalor. The condition
of the inhabitants is not worse, perhaps, in an Egyptian Beled ^
than in many an Irish village ; but the condition of the children
is so distressing that one would willingly go any number of
miles out of the way rather than witness their suffering, without
the power to alleviate it.^

If the population in and about Minieh are personally

1 Beled — village.

2 Miss Whately, whose evidence on this subject is peculiarly valuable,
states that the majority of native children die off at, or under, two years ot
age {Among the Huts, p. 29) ; while M. About, who enjoyed unusual
opportunies of inquiring into facts connected with the population and
resources of the country, says that the nation loses three children out of

BEDRESHAYN TO MINIEH. 87

unattractive, their appearance at all events matches their repu-
tation, which is as bad as that of their neighbours. Of the
manners and customs of Beni Suef we had already some ex-
perience ; while public opinion charges Minieh, Rhoda, and
most of the towns and villages north of Siut, with the like
marauding propensities. As for the villages at the foot of Beni
Hassan, they have been mere dens of thieves for many genera-
tions ; and though razed to the ground some years ago by way
of punishment, are now rebuilt, and in as bad odour as ever.
It is necessary, therefore, in all this part of the river, not only
to hire guards at night, but, when the boat is moored, to keep a
sharp look-out against thieves by day. In Upper Egypt it is very
different. There the natives are good-looking, good-natured,
gentle, and kindly ; and though clever enough at manufacturing
and selling modern antiquities, are not otherwise dishonest.

That same evening — (it was Christmas Eve) — nearly two
hours earlier than their train was supposed to be due, the rest
of our party arrived at Minieh.

every five. " L'ignorance publique, I'oubli des premiers ^l^ments d'hygi^ne,
la mauvaise alimentation, I'absence presque totale des soins medicaux,
tarissent la nation dans sa source. Un peuple qui perd rdgulierement
trios enfants sur cinq ne saurait croitre sans miracle." — Le Fellah, p. 165.

MARKET BOAT MINIEH,

CHAPTER VI.

MINIEH TO SIUT.

It h Christmas Day. The M. B.'s are coming to dinner ; the
cooks are up to their eyes in entrees ; the crew are treated to
a sheep in honour of the occasion ; the new-comers are unpack-
ing ; and we are all gradually settling down into our respective
places. Now, the new-comers consist of four persons : — a
Painter, a Happy Couple, and a maid. The Painter has
already been up the Nile three times, and brings a fund of
experience into the council. He knows all about sandbanks,
and winds, and mooring-places ; is acquainted with most of the
native governors and consuls along the river ; and is great on
the subject of what to eat, drink, and avoid. The stern-cabin
is given to him for a studio, and contains frames, canvases,
drawing-paper, and easels enough to start a provincial school
of art. He is going to paint a big picture at Aboo-Simbel.
The Happy Couple, it is unnecessary to say, are on their wed-
ding tour. In point of fact, they have not yet been married a
month. The bridegroom is what the world chooses to call an
idle man ; that is to say, he has scholarship, delicate health,
and leisure. The bride, for convenience, shall be called the
Little Lady. Of people who are struggling through that help-
less phase of human life called the honeymoon, it is not fair to
say more than that they are both young enough to make the
situation interesting.

Meanwhile the deck must be cleared of the new luggage
that has come on board, and the day passes in a confusion of
unpacking, arranging, and putting away. Such running to

MINIEH TO SIOT.' 89

and fro as there is down below ; such turning-out of boxes and
knocking-up of temporary shelves ; such talking, and laughing,
and hammering ! Nor is the bustle confined to downstairs.
Talhamy and the waiters are just as busy above, adorning the
upper deck with palm-branches and hanging the boat all round
with rows of coloured lanterns. One can hardly believe, how-
ever, that it is Christmas Day — that there are fires blazing at
home in every room ; that the church-field, perhaps, is white
with snow ; and that the familiar bells are ringing merrily
across the frosty air. Here at midday it is already too hot on
deck without the awning, and when we moor towards sunset
near a riverside village in a grove of palms, the cooler air of
evening is delicious.

There is novelty in even such a commonplace matter as
dining out, on the Nile. You go and return in your felucca,
as if it were a carriage ; and your entertainers summon you by
firing a dinner-gun, instead of sounding a gong. Wise people
who respect the feelings of their cooks fire a dressing-gun as
well ; for watches soon differ in a hopeless way for want of
the church-clock to set them by, and it is always possible that
host and guest may be an hour or two apart in their reckoning.

The customary guns having therefore been fired, and the
party assembled, we sat down to one of cook Bedawee's prodi-
gious banquets. Not, however, till the plum-pudding, blazing
demoniacally, appeared upon the scene, did any of us succeed
in believing that it was really Christmas Day.

Nothing could be prettier or gayer than the spectacle that
awaited us when we rose from table. A hundred and fifty
coloured lanterns outlined the boat from end to end, sparkled
up the masts, and cast broken reflections in the moving
current. The upper-deck, hung with flags and partly closed
in with awnings, looked like a bower of palms. The stars and
the crescent moon shone overhead. Dim outlines of trees and
headlands, and a vague perspective of gleaming river, were
visible in the distance ; while a light gleamed now and then
in the direction of the village, or a dusky figure flitted along
the bank.

Meanwhile, there was a sound of revelry by night ; for our
sailors had invited the Bagstones' crew to unlimited coffee sind

90 MINIEH TO SIOT.

tobacco, and had quite a large party on the lower deck. They
drummed, they sang, they danced, they dressed up, improvised a
comic scene, and kept their audience in a roar. Reis Hassan
did the honours. George, Talhamy, and the maids sat apart
at the second table and sipped their coffee genteelly. We looked
on and applauded. At ten o'clock a pan of magnesium powder
was burned, and our Fantasia ended with a blaze of light, like
a pantomime.

In Egypt, by the way, any entertainment which is enlivened
by music, dancing, or fireworks is called a Fantasia.

And now, sometimes sailing, sometimes tracking, sometimes
punting, we go on day by day, making what speed we can.
Things do not, of course, always fall out exactly as one would
have them. The wind too often fails when we most need it, and
gets up when there is something to be seen on shore. Thus,
after a whole morning of tracking, we reach Beni Hassan at
the moment when a good breeze has suddenly filled our sails
for the first time in forty-eight hours ; and so, yielding to
counsels which we afterwards deplored, we pass on with many
a longing look at the terraced doorways pierced along the
cliffs. At Rhoda, in the same way, we touch for only a izyN
minutes to post and inquire for letters, and put off till our
return the inland excursion to Dayr el Nakhl, where is to be
seen the famous painting of the Colossus on the Sledge. But
sights deferred are fated sometimes to remain unseen, as we
found by and by to our exceeding loss and regret.

Meanwhile, the skies are always cloudless, the days warm,
the evenings exquisite. We of course live very much in the
open air. When there is no wind, we land and take long
walks by the river-side. When on board, we sketch, write
letters, read Champollion, Bunsen, and Sir Gardner Wilkinson ;
and work hard at Egyptian dynasties. The sparrows and
water-wagtails perch familiarly on the av/nings and hop about
the deck ; the cocks and hens chatter, the geese cackle, the
turkeys gobble in their coops close by ; and our sacrificial
sheep, leading a solitary life in the felucca, comes baaing in
the rear. Sometimes we have as many as a hundred chickens
on board (to say nothing of pigeons and rabbits) and two or
even three sheep in the felucca. The poultry yard is railed

MINIEH TO SIJJT. 91

off, however, at the extreme end of the stern, so that the
creatures are well away from the drawing-room ; and when we
moor at a suitable place, they are let out for a few hours to
peck about the banks and enjoy their liberty. L. and the
Little Lady feed these hapless prisoners with breakfast-scraps
every morning, to the profound amusement of the steersman,
who, unable to conceive any other motive, imagines they are
fatting them for table.

Such is our Noah's Ark life, pleasant, peaceful, and patri-
archal. Even on days when there is little to see and nothing
to do, it is never dull. Trifling incidents which have for us
the excitement of novelty are continually occurring. Other
dahabeeyahs, their flags and occupants, are a constant source
of interest. Meeting at mooring-places for the night, we now
and then exchange visits. Passing each other by day, we dip
ensigns, fire salutes, and punctiliously observe the laws of mari-
time etiquette. Sometimes a Cook's Excursion-steamer hurries
by, crowded with tourists ; or a government tug towing three
or four great barges closely packed with wretched-looking, half-
naked fellaheen bound for forced labour on some new railway
or canal. Occasionally we pass a dahabeeyah sticking fast
upon a sandbank ; and sometimes we stick on one ourselves.
Then the men fly to their punting poles, or jump into the river
like water-dogs, and, grunting in melancholy cadence, shove the
boat off with their shoulders.

The birds, too, are new, and we are always looking out for
them. Perhaps we see a top-heavy pelican balancing his huge
yellow bill over the edge of the stream, and fishing for his
dinner — or a flight of wild geese trailing across the sky towards
sunset — or a select society of vultures perched all in a row upon
a ledge of rock, and solemn as the bench of bishops. Then
there are the herons who stand on one leg and doze in the
sun ; the strutting hoopoes with their legendary top-knots ; the
blue and green bee-eaters hovering over the uncut dura. The
pied kingfisher, black and white like a magpie, sits fearlessly
under the bank and never stirs, though the tow-rope swings
close above his head and the dahabeeyah glides within a few
feet of the shore. The paddy-birds whiten the sandbanks by
hundreds, and rise in a cloud at our approach, The sacred

MINIEH TO Sit/T.

hawk, circling overhead, utters the same sweet, piercing,
melancholy note that the Pharaohs listened to of old.

The scenery is for the most part of the ordinary Nile
pattern ; and for many a mile we see the same things over and
over again : — the level bank shelving down steeply to the
river; the strip of cultivated soil, green with* maize or tawny
with dura ; the frequent mud-village and palm-grove ; the
deserted sugar-factory with its ungainly chimney and shattered
windows ; the water-wheel slowly revolving with its necklace
of pots ; the shaduf worked by two brown athletes ; the file of

GEBEL ABUFAYDA.

laden camels ; the desert, all sand-hills and sand-plains, with
its background of mountains ; the long reach, and the gleaming
sail ahead. Sometimes, however, as at Kom Ahmar, we
skirt the ancient brick mounds of some forgotten city, with
fragments of arched foundations, and even of walls and door-
ways, reaching down to the water's edge ; or, sailing close
under ranges of huge perpendicular cliffs, as at Gebel Abufayda,
startle the cormorants from their haunts, and peer as we pass
into the dim recesses of many a rock-cut tomb excavated just
above the level of the inundation.

This Gebel Abufayda has a bad name for sudden winds ;
especially at the beginning and end of the range, where the

MINIEH TO SIOT. q3

Nile bends abruptly and the valley opens out at right angles
to the river. It is fine to see Reis Hassan, as we approach
one of the worst of these bad bits — a point where two sleep
ravines divided by a bold headland command the passage like
a pair of grim cannon, and rake it with blasts from the North-
Eastern desert. Here the current, flowing deep and strong, is
met by the wind and runs high in crested waves. Our little
captain, kicking off his shoes, himself springs up the rigging
and there stands silent and watchful. The sailors, ready to
shift our mainsail at the word of command, cling some to the
shoghool ^ and some to the end of the yard ; the boat tears on
before the wind ; the great bluff looms up darker and nearer.
Then comes a breathless moment. Then a sharp, sudden word
from the little man in the main rigging ; a yell and a whoop
from the sailors ; a slow, heavy lurch of the flapping sail ; and
the corner is turned in safety.

The cliffs here are very fine ; much loftier and less uniform
than at Gebel et Tayr ; rent into strange forms, as of sphinxes,
cheesewrings, towers, and bastions ; honeycombed with long
ranges of rock-cut tombs ; and undermined by water-washed
caverns in which lurk a few lingering crocodiles. If at Gebel
et Tayr the rock is worn into semblances of Arabesque orna-
mentation, here it looks as if inscribed all over with mysterious
records in characters not unlike the Hebrew. Records they
are, too, of prehistoric days — chronicles of his own deeds
carved by the great God Nile himself, the Hapimu of ancient
time — but the language in which they are written has never
been spoken by man.

As for the rock-cut tombs of Gebel Abufayda, they must
number many hundreds. For nearly twelve miles, the range
runs parallel to the river, and throughout that distance the face
of the cliffs is pierced with innumerable doorways. Some are
small and square, twenty or thirty together, like rows of port-
holes. Others are isolated. Some are cut so high up that
they must have been approached from above ; others again
come close upon the level of the river. Some of the doorways
are faced to represent jambs and architraves ; some, excavated
laterally, appear to consist of a series of chambers, and are lit

1 h.rah\c—sho^hool : a rope by which the mainsail is regulated.

94 MINIEH TO SIOT.

I'rom without by small windows cut in the rock. One is
approached by a flight of rough steps leading up from the
water's edge ; and another, hewn high in the face of the cliff,
just within the mouth of a little ravine, shows a simple but
imposing fagade supported by four detached pillars. No
modern travellers seem to visit these tombs ; while those of
the old school, as Wilkinson, Champollion, etc., dismiss them
with a few observations. Yet, with the single exception
of the mountains behind Thebes, there is not, I believe,
any one spot in Egypt which contains such a multitude of
sepulchral excavations. Many look, indeed, as if they might
belong to the same interesting and early epoch as those of
Beni Hassan.

I may here mention that about half-way, or rather less than
half-way, along the whole length of the range, I observed two
large hieroglyphed stelae incised upon the face of a projecting
mass of boldly-rounded cliff at a height of perhaps a hundred
and fifty feet above the river. These stelae, apparently royal
ovals, and sculptured as usual side by side, may have measured
from twelve to fifteen feet in height ; but in the absence of any
near object by which to scale them, I could form but a rough
guess as to their actual dimensions. The boat was just then
going so fast, that to sketch or take notes of the hieroglyphs
was impossible. Before I could adjust my glass they were
already in the rear ; and by the time I had called the rest of
the party together, they were no longer distinguishable.

Coming back several months later, I looked for them
again, but without success ; for the intense midday sun was
then pouring full upon the rocks, to the absolute obliteration
of everything like shallow detail. While watching vainly,
however, for the stelae, I was compensated by the unexpected
sight of a colossal bas-relief high up on the northward face of
a cliff standing, so to say, at the corner of one of those little
recesses or culs-de-sac which here and there break the uniformity
of the range. The sculptural relief of this large subject was
apparently very low ; but, owing to the angle at which it met
the light, one figure, which could not have measured less than
eighteen or twenty feet in height, was distinctly visible. I
immediately drew L.'s attention to the spot ; and she not only

MINIEH TO SIOT. 95

discerned the figure without the help of a glass, but believed
like myself that she could see traces of a second.

As neither the stelae nor the bas-relief would seem to have
been observed by previous travellers, I may add for the
guidance of others that the round and tower-like rock upon
which the former are sculptured lies about a mile to the south-
ward of the Sheykh's tomb and palm-tree (a strikingly pictur-
esque bit which no one can fail to notice), and a little beyond
some very large excavations near the water's edge ; while the
bas-relief is to be found at a short distance below the Coptic
convent and cemetery.

Having for nearly twelve miles skirted the base of Gebel
Abufayda — by far the finest panoramic stretch of rock scenery
on this side of the second cataract — the Nile takes an abrupt
bend to the eastward, and thence flows through many miles of
cultivated flat. On coming to this sudden elbow, the wind
which had hitherto been carrying us along at a pace but little
inferior to that of a steamer, now struck us full on the beam,
and drove the boat to shore with such violence that all the
steersman could do was just to run the Philae's nose into the
bank, and steer clear of some ten or twelve native cangias that
had been driven in before us. The Bagstones rushed in next ;
and presently a large iron -built dahabeeyah, having come
gallantly along under the cliffs with all sail set, was seen to
make a vain struggle at the fatal corner, and then plunge head-
long at the bank, like King Agib's ship upon the Loadstone
Mountain.

Imprisoned here all the afternoon, we exchanged visits of
condolence with our neighbours in misfortune ; had our ears
nearly cut to pieces by the driving sand ; and failed signally
in the endeavour to take a walk on shore. Still the fury of
the storm went on increasing. The wind howled ; the river
raced in turbid waves ; the sand drove in clouds ; and the face
of the sky was darkened as if by a London fog. Meanwhile,
one boat after another was hurled to shore, and before night-
fall we numbered a fleet of some twenty odd craft, native and
foreign.

It took the united strength of both crews all next day to
warp the Philae and Bagstones across the river by means of a

^6 MINIEH TO SIUT.

rope and an anchor ; an expedient that deserves special men-
tion, not for its amazing novelty or ingenuity, but because our
men declared it to be impracticable. Their fathers, they said,
had never done it., Their fathers' fathers had never done it.
Therefore it was impossible. Being impossible, why should
they attempt it.

They did attempt it, however, and, much to their astonish-
ment, they succeeded.

It was, I think, towards the afternoon of this second day,
»vhen strolling by the margin of the river, that we first made
the acquaintance of that renowned insect, the Egyptian beetle.
He was a very fine specimen of his rade, nearly half an inch
long in the back, as black and shiny as a scarab cut in jet,
and busily engaged in the preparation of a large rissole of mud,
which he presently began laboriously propelling up the bank.
We stood and watched him for some time, half in admiration,
half in pity. His rissole was at least four times bigger than
himself, and to roll it up that steep incline to a point beyond
the level of next summer's inundation was a labour of Hercules
for so small a creature. One longed to play the part of the
Deus ex machina, and carry it up the bank for him ; but
that would have been a denouement beyond his power of
appreciation.

We all know the old story of how this beetle lays its eggs
by the river's brink ; encloses them in a ball of moist clay ;
rolls the ball to a safe place on the edge of the desert ; buries
it in the sand ; and when his time comes, dies content, having
provided for the safety of his successors. Hence his mythic
fame ; hence all the quaint symbolism that by degrees attached
itself to his little person, and ended by investing him with a
special sacredness which has often been mistaken for actual
worship. Standing by thus, watching the movements of the
creature, its untiring energy, its extraordinary muscular strength,
its business-like devotion to the matter in hand, one sees how
subtle a lesson the old Egyptian moralists had presented to
them for contemplation, and with how fine a combination of
wisdom and poetry they regarded this little black scarab not
only as an emblem of the creative and preserving power, but
perhaps also of the immortality of the soul. As a type, no

MINIEH TO SIUT. 97

insect has ever had so much greatness thrust upon him. He
became a hieroglyph, and stood for a word signifying both To
Be and To Transform. His portrait was multiplied a million-
fold ; sculptured over the portals of temples ; fitted to the
shoulders of a God ; engraved on gems ; moulded in pottery ;
painted on sarcophagi and the walls of tombs ; worn by the
living and buried with the dead.

Every traveller on the Nile brings away a handful of the
smaller scarabs, genuine or otherwise. Some may not particu-
larly care to possess them ; yet none can help buying them, if
only because other people do so, or to get rid of a troublesome
dealer, or to give to friends at home. I doubt, however, if
even the most enthusiastic scarab-fanciers really feel in all its
force the symbolism attaching to these little gems, or appreciate
the exquisite naturalness of their execution, till they have seen
the living beetle at its work.

In Nubia, where the strip of cultivable land is generally
but a few feet in breadth, the scarab's task is comparatively
light, and the breed multiplies freely. But in Egypt he has
often a wide plain to traverse with his burden, and is therefore
scarce in proportion to the difficulty with which he maintains
the struggle for existence. The scarab race in Egypt would
seem indeed to have diminished very considerably since the
days of the Pharaohs, and the time is not perhaps far distant
when the naturalist will look in vain for specimens on this side
of the first cataract. As far as my own experience goes, I can
only say that I saw scores of these beetles during the Nubian
part of the journey ; but that to the best of my recollection
this was the only occasion upon which I observed one in Egypt.

The Nile makes four or five more great bends between
Gebel Abufayda and Siut ; passing Manfalut by the way, which
town lies some distance back from the shore. All things taken
into consideration — the fitful wind that came and went con-
tinually ; the tremendous zigzags of the river ; the dead calm
which befell us when only eight miles from Siut ; and the long
day of tracking that followed, with the town in sight the whole
way — we thought ourselves fortunate to get in by the evening
of the third day after the storm. These last eight miles are,
however, for open, placid beauty, as lovely in their way as any-

98 MINIEH TO SIUT.

thing north of Thebes. The valley is here very wide and
fertile ; the town, with its multitudinous minarets, appears first
on one side and then on the other, according to the windings
of the river ; the distant pinky mountains look almost as trans-
parent as the air or the sunshine ; while the banks unfold an
endless succession of charming little subjects, every one of
which looks as if it asked to be sketched as we pass. A
shaduf and a clump of palms — a triad of shaggy black buffaloes,
up to their shoulders in the river, and dozing as they stand — a
wide-spreading sycamore fig, in the shade of which lie a man
and camel asleep — a fallen palm uprooted by the last inunda-

RIVER-SIDE TOMBS NEAR SiOt.

tion, with its fibrous roots yet clinging to the bank and its
crest in the water — a group of sheykhs' tombs with glistening
white cupolas relieved against a background of dark foliage —
an old disused water-wheel lying up sidewise against the bank
like a huge teetotum, and garlanded with wild tendrils of a
gourd — such are a few out of many bits by the way, which, if
they offer nothing very new, at all events present the old
material under fresh aspects, and in combination with a distance
of such ethereal light and shade, and such opalescent tenderness
of tone, that it looks more like an air-drawn mirage than a
piece of the world we live in.

Like a mirage, too, that fairy town of Siut seemed always
to hover at the same unattainable distance, and after hours of

MINIEH TO SIUT.

tracking to be no nearer than at first. Sometimes, indeed,
following the long reaches of the river, we appeared to be
leaving it behind ; and although, as I have said, we had eight
miles of hard work to get to it, I doubt whether it was ever
more than three miles distant as the bird flies. It was late in
the afternoon, however, when we turned the last corner ; and
the sun was already setting when the boat reached the village
of Hamra, which is the mooring-place for Siut — Siut itself,
with clustered cupolas and arrowy minarets, lying back in the
plain, at the foot of a great mountain pierced with tombs.

Now, it was in the bond that our crew were to be allowed
twenty-four hours for making and baking bread at Siut, Esneh,
and Assuan. No sooner, therefore, was the dahabeeyah moored
than Rei's Hassan and the steersman started away at full speed
on two little donkeys, to buy flour ; while Mehemet Ali, one of
our most active and intelligent sailors, rushed off to hire the
oven. For here, as at Esneh and Assuan, there are large flour-
stores and public bakehouses for the use of sailors on the river,
who make and bake their bread in large lots ; cut it into slices ;
dry it in the sun ; and preserve it in the form of rusks for
months together. Thus prepared, it takes the place of ship-
biscuit ; and it is so far superior to ship -biscuit that it neither
moulds nor breeds the maggot, but remains good and wholesome
to the last crumb.

Siut, frequently written Asyoot, is the capital of Middle
Egypt, and has the best bazaars of any town up the Nile. Its
red and black pottery is famous throughout the country ; and
its pipe-bowls (supposed to be the best in the East), being
largely exported to Cairo, find their way not only to all parts
of the Levant, but to every Algerine and Japanese shop in
London and Paris. No lover of peasant pottery will yet have
forgotten the Egyptian stalls in the Ceramic Gallery of the
International Exhibition of 1871. All those quaint red vases
and lustrous black tazzas, all those exquisite little coffee services,
those crocodile paper-weights, those barrel-shaped and bird-
shaped bottles, came from Siut. There is a whole street of
such pottery here in the town. Your dahabeeyah is scarcely
made fast before a dealer comes on board and ranges his brittle
wares along the deck. Others display their goods upon the

MINIEH TO SIOT. lOi

bank. But the best things are only to be had in the bazaars ;
and not even in Cairo is it possible to find Siut ware so choice
in colour, form, and design as that which the two or three best
dealers bring out, wrapped in soft paper, when a European
customer appears in the market.

Besides the street of pottery, there is a street of red shoes ;
another of native and foreign stuffs ; and the usual run of
saddlers' shops, kebab-stalls, and Greek stores for the sale of
everything in heaven or earth from third-rate cognac to patent
wax vestas. The houses are of plastered mud or sun-dried
bricks, as at Minieh. The thoroughfares are dusty, narrow,
unpaved and crowded, as at Minieh. The people are one-eyed,
dirty, and unfragrant, as at Minieh. The children's eyes are
full of flies and their heads are covered with sores, as at Minieh.
In short, it is Minieh over again on a larger scale ; differing
only in respect of its inhabitants, who, instead of being sullen,
thievish, and unfriendly, are too familiar to be pleasant, and
the most unappeasable beggars out of Ireland. So our mirage
turns to sordid reality, and Siut, which from afar off looked
like the capital of Dreamland, resolves itself into a big mud
town as ugly and ordinary as its fellows. Even the minarets,
so elegant from a distance, betray for the most part but rough
masonry and clumsy ornamentation when closely looked into.

A lofty embanked road planted with fine sycamore-figs
leads from Hamra to Siut ; and another embanked road leads
from Siut to the mountain of tombs. Of the ancient Egyptian
city no vestige remains, the modern town being built upon the
mounds of the earlier settlement ; but the City of the Dead —
so much of it, at least, as was excavated in the living rock —
survives, as at Memphis, to commemorate the departed splendour
of the place.

We took donkeys next day to the edge of the desert, and
went up to the sepulchres on foot. The mountain, which looked
a delicate salmon pink when seen from afar, now showed bleached
and arid and streaked with ochreous yellow. Layer above
layer, in beds of strongly marked stratification, it towered over-
head ; tier above tier, the tombs yawned, open-mouthed, along
the face of the precipice. I picked up a fragment of the rock,
and found it light, porous, and full of little cells, like pumice.

102 MINIEH TO SIUT.

The slopes were strewn with such stones, as well as with
fragments of mummy, shreds of mummy-cloth, and human bones
all whitening and withering in the sun.

The first tomb we came to was the so-called Stabl Antar
■ — a magnificent but cruelly mutilated excavation, consisting of
a grand entrance, a vaulted corridor, a great hall, two side-
chambers, and a sanctuary. The ceiling of the corridor, now
smoke-blackened and defaced, has been richly decorated with
intricate patterns in light green, white, and buff, upon a ground
of dark bluish-green stucco. The wall to the right on entering is
covered with a long hieroglyphic inscription. In the sanctuary,
vague traces of seated figures, male and female, with lotus
blossoms in their hands, are dimly visible. Two colossal
warriors incised in outline upon the levelled rock — the one
very perfect, the other hacked almost out of recognition — stand
on each side of the huge portal. A circular hole in the
threshold marks the spot where the great door once worked
upon its pivot ; and a deep pit, now partially filled in with
rubbish, leads from the centre of the hall to some long-rifled
vault deep down in the heart of the mountain. Wilful destruc-
tion has been at work on every side. The wall-sculptures are
chipped and defaced — the massive pillars that once supported
the superincumbent rock have been quarried away — the
interior is heaped high with debris. Enough is left, however,
to attest the antique stateliness of the tomb ; and the hiero-
glyphic inscription remains almost intact to tell its age and
history.

This inscription (erroneously entered in Murray's Guide as
uncopied, but interpreted by Brugsch, who published extracts
from it as far back as 1862) shows the excavation to have
been made for one Hepoukefa, or Haptefa, nomarch of the
Lycopolite Nome, and Chief Priest of the jackal god of Siiit.^
It is also famous among scientific students for certain passages
which contain important information regarding the intercalary

1 The known inscriptions in the tomb of Haptefa have recently been
recopied, and another long inscription, not previously transcribed, has been
copied and translated, by Mr. F. Llewellyn Griffith, acting for the Egypt
Exploration Fund. Mr. Griffith has for the first time fixed the date of this
famous tomb, which was made during the reign of Usertesen I, of the
Xllth dynasty. [Note to Second Edition.}

MINIEH TO SltJT. 103

days of the Egyptian kalendar.^ We observed that the
full-length figures on the jambs of the doorway appeared to
have been incised, filled in with stucco, and then coloured.
The stucco had for the most part fallen out, though enough
remained to show the style of the work.^

From this tomb to the next we crept by way of a passage,
tunnelled in the mountain, and emerged into a spacious, quad-
rangular grotto, even more dilapidated than the first. It had
been originally supported by square pillars left standing in the
substance of the rock ; but, like the pillars in the tomb of
Hepoukefa, they had been hewn away in the middle and looked
like stalactite columns in process of formation. For the rest,
two half-filled pits, a broken sarcophagus, and a few painted
hieroglyphs upon a space of stuccoed wall, were all that
remained.

One would have liked to see the sepulchre in which Ampere,
the brilliant and eager disciple of Champollion, deciphered the
ancient name of Siut ; but since he does not specify the
cartouche by which it could be identified, one might wander
about the mountain for a week without being able to find it.
Having first described the Stabl Antar, he says : — " In another
grotto I found twice over the name of the city written in hiero-
glyphic characters, Qi-ou-t. This name forms part of an inscrip-
tion which also contains an ancient royal cartouche ; so proving
that the present name of the city dates back to Pharaonic
times." ^

Here, then, we trace a double process of preservation.
This town, which in the ancient Egyptian was written Ssout,
became Lycopolis under the Greeks ; continued to be called
Lycopolis throughout the period of Roman rule in Egypt ;
reverted to its old historic name under the Copts of the middle
ages, who wrote it Sioout ; and survives in the Asyoot of the

1 See Recueil des Monuments Egyptiens, Brugsch. Part I. Planche
xi. Published 1862.

2 Some famous tombs of very early date, enriched with the same kind
of inlaid decoration, are to be seen at Meydum, near the base of the Mey-
dum Pyramid.

3 Voyage en Egypte et en Nubie, by J. J. Ampere. The cartouche may
perhaps be that of Rakameri^ mentioned by Brugsch : Histoire d Egypte,
chap, vi., first edition.

I04 MINIEH TO SIOT.

Arab fellah. Nor is this by any means a solitary instance.
Khemmis in the same way became Panopolis, reverted to the
Coptic Chmin, and to this day as Ekhmim perpetuates the
legend of its first foundation. As with these fragments of the
old tongue, so with the race. Subdued again and again by
invading hordes ; intermixed for centuries together with
Phoenician, Persian, Greek, Roman, and Arab blood, it fuses
these heterogeneous elements in one common mould, reverts
persistently to the early type, and remains Egyptian to the
last. So strange is the tyranny of natural forces. The sun
and soil of Egypt demand one special breed of men, and will
tolerate no other. Foreign residents cannot rear children in
the country. In the Isthmus of Suez, which is considered the
healthiest part of Egypt, an alien population of twenty thousand
persons failed in the course of ten years to rear one infant born
upon the soil. Children of an alien father and an Egyptian
mother will die off in the same way in early infancy, unless
brought up in the simple native fashion. And it is affirmed of
the descendants of mixed marriages, that after the third genera-
tion the foreign blood seems to be eliminated, while the traits
of the race are restored in their original purity.

These are but a few instances of the startling conservatism
of Egypt, — a conservatism which interested me particularly,
and to which I shall frequently have occasion to return.

Each Nome, or province, of ancient Egypt had its sacred
animal ; and Siut was called Lycopolis by the Greeks ^ because
the wolf (now almost extinct in the land) was there held in the
same kind of reverence as the cat at Bubastis, the crocodile at
Ombos, and the lion at Leontopolis. Mummy-wolves are, or
used to be, found in the smaller tombs about the mountain, as
well as mummy-jackals ; Anubis, the jackal-headed god, being
the presiding deity of the district. A mummied jackal from
this place, curiously wrapped in striped bandages, is to be seen
in the First Egyptian Room at the British Museum.

But the view from the mountain above Siut is finer than
its tombs and more ancient than its mummies. Seen from
within the great doorway of the second grotto, it looks like a

1 The Greeks translated the sacred names of Egyptian places ; the
Copts adopted the civil names.

MINIEH TO SIOT. 105

framed picture. For the foreground, we have a dazzling slope
of limestone debris ; in the middle distance, a wide plain
clothed with the delicious tender green of very young corn ;
farther away yet, the cupolas and minarets of Siut rising from
the midst of a belt of palm-groves ; beyond these again, the
molten gold of the great river glittering away, coil after coil,
into the far distance ; and all along the horizon, the everlast-
ing boundary of the desert. Large pools of placid water left
by the last inundation lie here and there, like lakes amid the
green. A group of brown men are wading yonder with their
nets. A funeral comes along the embanked road — the bier
carried at a rapid pace on men's shoulders, and covered with a
red shawl ; the women taking up handfuls of dust and scatter-
ing it upon their heads as they walk. We can see the dust
flying, and hear their shrill wail borne upon the breathless air.
The cemetery towards which they are going lies round to the
left, at the foot of the mountain — a wilderness of little white
cupolas, with here and there a tree. Broad spaces of shade
sleep under the spreading sycamores by the road-side ; a hawk
circles overhead ; and Siut, bathed in the splendour of the
morning sun, looks as fairy-like as ever.

Lepsius is reported to have said that the view from this
hill-side was the finest in Egypt. But Egypt is a long country,
and questions of precedence are delicate matters to deal with.
It is, however, a very beautiful view ; though most travellers
who know the scenery about Thebes and the approach to
Assuan would hesitate, I should fancy, to give the preference
to a landscape from which the nearer mountains are excluded
by the position of the spectator.

The tombs here, as in many other parts of Egypt, are said
to have been largely appropriated by early Christian anchorites
during the reigns of the later Roman emperors ; and to these
recluses may perhaps be ascribed the legend that makes Lyco-
polis the abode of Joseph and Mary during the years of their
sojourn in Egypt. It is, of course, but a legend, and wholly
improbable. If the Holy Family ever journeyed into Egypt
at all, which certain Biblical critics now hold to be doubtful,
they probably rested from their wanderings at some town not
very far from the eastern border — as Tanis, or Pithom, or

io6 MINIEH TO SIUT.

Bubastis. Siut would, at all events, lie at least 250 miles to
the southward of any point to which they might reasonably be
supposed to have penetrated.

Still, one would like to believe a story that laid the scene
of Our Lord's childhood in the midst of this beautiful and
glowing Egyptian pastoral. With what a profound and touch-
ing interest it would invest the place ! With what different
eyes we should look down upon a landscape which must have
been dear and familiar to Him in all its details, and which,
from the nature of the ground, must have remained almost
unchanged from His day to ours ! The mountain with its
tombs, the green corn-flats, the Nile and the desert, looked
then as they look now. It is only the Moslem minarets that
are new. It is only the pylons and sanctuaries of the ancient
worship that have passed away.

CHAPTER VII.

SIUT TO DENDERAH.

We started from Siut with a couple of tons of new brown
bread on board, which, being cut into slices and laid to dry in
the sun, was speedily converted into rusks and stored away in
two huge lockers on the upper deck. The sparrows and water-
wagtails had a good time while the drying went on ; but no
one seemed to grudge the toll they levied.

We often had a " big wind " now ; though it seldom began
to blow before ten or eleven A.M., and generally fell at sunset.
Now and then, when it chanced to keep up, and the river was
known to be free from shallows, we went on sailing through
the night ; but this seldom happened, and when it did happen,
it made sleep impossible — so that nothing but the certainty of
doing a great many miles between bedtime and breakfast could
induce us to put up with it.

We had now been long enough afloat to find out that we
had almost always one man on the sick list, and were there-
fore habitually short of a hand for the navigation of the boat.
There never were such fellows for knocking themselves to
pieces as our sailors. They were always bruising their feet,
wounding their hands, getting sunstrokes, and whitlows, and
sprains, and disabling themselves in some way. L., with her
little medicine chest and her roll of lint and bandages, soon
had a small but steady practice, and might have been seen
about the lower deck most mornings after breakfast, repairing
these damaged Alis and Hassans. It was well for them that
we carried " an experienced surgeon," for they were entirely

io8 SIOT to DENDERAH.

helpless and despondent when hurt, and ignorant of the com-
monest remedies. Nor is this helplessness confined to natives
of the sailor and fellah class. The provincial proprietors and
officials are to the full as ignorant, not only of the uses of such
simple things as poultices or wet compresses, but of the most
elementary laws of health. Doctors there are none south of
Cairo ; and such is the general mistrust of State medicine, that
when, as in the case of any widely-spread epidemic, a medical
officer is sent up the river by order of the Government, half the
people are said to conceal their sick, while the other half reject
the remedies prescribed for them. Their trust in the skill
of the passing European is, on the other hand, unbounded.
Appeals for advice and medicine were constantly being made
to us by both rich and poor ; and there was something very
pathetic in the simple faith with which they accepted any little
help we were able to give them. Meanwhile L.'s medical
reputation, being confirmed by a few simple cures, rose high
among the crew. They called her the Hakim Sitt (the Doctor-
Lady) ; obeyed her directions and swallowed her medicines as
reverently as if she were the College of Surgeons personified ;
and showed their gratitude in all kinds of pretty, child-like
ways — singing her favourite Arab song as they ran beside her
donkey — searching for sculptured fragments whenever there
were ruins to be visited — and constantly bringing her little
gifts of pebbles and wild flowers.

Above Siut, the picturesqueness of the river is confined for
the most part to the eastern bank. We have almost always a
near range of mountains on the Arabian side, and a more dis-
tant chain on the Libyan horizon. Gebel Sheykh el Raaineh
succeeds to Gebel Abufayda, and is followed in close succession
by the cliffs of Gow, of Gebel Sheykh el Hereedee, of Gebel
Ayserat and Gebel Tukh — all alike rigid in strongly-marked
beds of level limestone strata ; flat-topped and even, like lines of
giant ramparts ; and more or less pierced with orifices which we
know to be tombs, but which look like loopholes from a distance.

Flying before the wind with both sails set, we see the rapid
panorama unfold itself day after day, mile after mile, hour after
hour. Villages, palm-groves, rock-cut sepulchres, flit past and
are left behind. To-day we enter the region of the d6m palm.

SIUT TO DENDERAH. 109

To-morrow we pass the map-drawn limit of the crocodile. The
cliffs advance, recede, open away into desolate-looking valleys,
and show faint traces of paths leading to excavated tombs on
distant heights. The headland that looked shadowy in the
distance a couple of hours ago, is reached and passed. The
cargo-boat on which we have been gaining all the morning is
outstripped and dwindling in the rear. Now we pass a bold
bluff sheltering a sheykh's tomb and a solitary dom palm —
now an ancient quarry from which the stone has been cut out
in smooth masses, leaving great halls, and corridors, and stages
in the mountain side. At Gow,^ the scene of an insurrection
headed by a crazy dervish some ten years ago, we see, in place
of a large and populous village, only a tract of fertile corn-
ground, a few ruined huts, and a group of decapitated palms.
We are now skirting Gebel Sheykh el Hereedee ; here bordered
by a rich margin of cultivated flat ; yonder leaving space for
scarce a strip of roadway between the precipice and the river.
Then comes Raaineh, a large village of square mud towers,
lofty and battlemented, with string-courses of pots for the
pigeons — and later on, Girgeh, once the capital town of Middle
Egypt, where we put in for half an hour to post and inquire
for letters. Here the Nile is fast eating away the bank and
carrying the town by storm. A ruined mosque with pointed
arches, roofless cloisters, and a leaning column that must surely
have come to the ground by this time, stands just above the
landing-place. A hundred years ago, it lay a quarter of a mile

^ According to the account given in her letters by Lady Duff Gordon,
this dervish, who had acquired a reputation for unusual sanctity by repeat-
ing the name of Allah 3000 times every night for three years, believed that
he had by these means rendered himself invulnerable ; and so, proclaiming
himself the appointed Slayer of Antichrist, he stirred up a revolt among the
villages bordering Gebel Sheykh Hereedee, instigated an attack on an
English dahabeeyah, and brought down upon himself and all that country-
side the swift and summary vengeance of the Government. Steamers with
troops commanded by Fadl Pasha were despatched up the river ; rebels
were shot ; villages sacked ; crops and cattle confiscated. The women
and children of the place were then distributed among the neighbouring
hamlets ; and Gow, which was as large a village as Luxor, ceased to exist.
The dervish's fate remained uncertain. He was shot, according to some ;
and by others it was said that he had escaped into the desert under the
protection of a tribe of Bedouins.

siCt to denderah.

iVom the river ; ten years ago it was yet perfect ; after a few
more inundations it will be swept away. Till that time comes
however, it helps to make Girgeh one of the most picturesque
towns in Egypt.

At Farshut we see the sugar-works in active operation —
smoke pouring from the tall chimneys ; steam issuing from the
traps in the basement ; cargo-boats unlading fresh sugar-cane
against the bank ; heavily-burdened Arabs transporting it to
the factory ; bullock-trucks laden with cane-leaf for firing. A
little higher up, at Sahil Bajura on the opposite side of the
river, we find the bank strewn for full a quarter of a mile with
sugar-cane en masse. Hundreds of camels are either arriving
laden with it, or going back for more — dozens of cargo-boats
are drawn up to receive it — swarms of brown fellaheen are stack-
ing it on board for unshipment again at Farshut. The camels
snort and growl ; the men shout ; the overseers, in blue-fringed
robes and white turbans, stalk to and fro, and keep the work
going. The mountains here recede so far as to be almost out
of sight, and a plain rich in sugar-cane and date-palms widens
out between them and the river.

And now the banks are lovely with an unwonted wealth of
verdure. The young corn clothes the plain like a carpet,
while the yellow-tasselled mimosa, the feathery tamarisk, the
dom and date palm, and the spreading sycamore-fig, border
the towing-path like garden trees beside a garden walk.

Farther on still, when all this greenery is left behind and
the banks have again become flat and bare, we see to our
exceeding surprise what seems to be a very large grizzled ape
perched on the top of a dust-heap on the western bank. The
creature is evidently quite tame, and sits on its haunches in
just that chilly, melancholy posture that the chimpanzee is
wont to assume in his cage at the Zoological Gardens. Some
six or eight Arabs, one of whom has dismounted from his camel
for the purpose, are standing round and staring at him, much
as the British public stands and stares at the specimen in the
Regent's Park. Meanwhile a strange excitement breaks out
among our crew. They crowd to the side ; they shout ; they
gesticulate ; the captain salaams ; the steersman waves his
hand ; all eyes are turned towards the shore.

SIUT TO DENDERAH.

"Do you see Sheykh Selim?" cries Talhamy breathlessly,
rushing up from below. " There he is ! Look at him ! That
is Sheykh Selim !"

And so we find out that it is not a monkey but a man —
and not only a man, but a saint. Holiest of the holy, dirtiest
of the dirty, white-pated, white-bearded, withered, bent, and
knotted up, is the renowned Sheykh Selim — he who, naked
and unwashed, has sat on that same spot every day through
summer heat and winter cold for the last fifty years ; never
providing himself with food or water ; never even lifting his
hand to his mouth ; depending on charity not only for his food
but for his feeding ! He is not nice to look at, even by this
dim light, and at this distance ; but the sailors think him quite
beautiful, and call aloud to him for his blessing as we go by.

" It is not by our own will that we sail past, O father!"
they cry. " Fain would we kiss thy hand ; but the wind blows
and the merkeb (boat) goes, and we have no power to stay!"

But Sheykh Selim neither lifts his head nor shows any
sign of hearing, and in a few minutes the mound on which he
sits IS left behind in the gloaming.

At How, where the new town is partly built on the mounds
of the old (Diospolis Parva), we next morning saw the natives
transporting small boat-loads of ancient brick-rubbish to the
opposite side of the river, for the purpose of manuring those
fields from which the early durra crop had just been gathered
in. Thus, curiously enough, the mud left by some inundation
of two or three thousand years ago comes at last to the use
from which it was then diverted, and is found to be more
fertilising than the new deposit. At Kasr es Sayd, a little
farther on, we came to one of the well-known " bad bits " — a
place where the bed of the river is full of sunken rocks, and
sailing is impossible. Here the men were half the day punting
the dahabeeyah over the dangerous part, while we grubbed
among the mounds of what was once the ancient city of
Chenoboscion. These remains, which cover a large superficial
area and consist entirely of crude brick foundations, are very
interesting, and in good preservation. We traced the ground -
plans of several houses ; followed the passages by which they
were separated ; and observed many small arches which seemed

SIUT TO DENDERAH. 113

built on too small a scale for doors or windows, but for which
it was difficult to account in any other way. Brambles and
weeds were growing in these deserted enclosures ; while rubbish-
heaps, excavated pits, and piles of broken pottery divided the
ruins and made the work of exploration difficult. We looked
in vain for the dilapidated quay and sculptured blocks men-
tioned in Wilkinson's General Viezv of Egypt ; but if the
foundation stones of the new sugar-factory close against the
mooring-place could speak, they would no doubt explain the
mystery. We saw nothing, indeed, to show that Chenoboscion
had contained any stone structures whatever, save the broken
shaft of one small granite column.

KASR BS SVAD.

The village of Kasr es Syad consists of a cluster of mud
huts and a sugar factory ; but the factory was idle that day,
and the village seemed half deserted. The view here is par-
ticularly fine. About a couple of miles to the southward, the
mountains, in magnificent procession, come down again at right
angles to the river, and thence reach away in long ranges of
precipitous headlands. The plain, terminating abruptly against
the foot of this gigantic barrier, opens back eastward to the
remotest horizon — an undulating sea of glistening sand, bordered
by a chaotic middle distance of mounded ruins. Nearest of
all, a narrow foreground of cultivated soil, green with young
crops and watered by frequent shadufs, extends along the
river-side to the foot of the mountains. A sheykh's tomb
shaded by a single dom palm is conspicuous on the bank ;

114 SIUT TO BENDER AH.

while far away, planted amid the solitary sands, we see a large
Coptic convent with many cupolas ; a cemetery full of Christian
graves ; and a little oasis of date palms indicating the presence
of a spring.

The chief interest of this scene, however, centres in the
ruins ; and these — looked upon from a little distance, blackened,
desolate, half-buried, obscured every now and then, when the
wind swept over them, by swirling clouds of dust — reminded
us of the villages, we had seen not two years before, half-over-
whelmed and yet smoking, in the midst of a lava-torrent below
Vesuvius.

We now had the full moon again, making night more
beautiful than day. Sitting on deck for hours after the sun
had gone down, when the boat glided gently on with half-filled
sail and the force of the wind was spent,' we used to wonder if
in all the world there was another climate in which the effect
of moonlight was so magical. To say that every object far or
near was visible as distinctly as by day, yet more tenderly, is
to say nothing. It was not only form that was defined ; it
was not only light and shadow that were vivid — it was colour
that was present. Colour neither deadened nor changed ; but
softened, glowing, spiritualised. The amber sheen of the sand-
island in the middle of the river, the sober green of the palm-
grove, the Little Lady's turquoise-coloured hood, were clear to
the sight and relatively true in tone. The oranges showed
through the bars of the crate like nuggets of pure gold. L.'s
crimson shawl glowed with a warmer dye than it ever wore by
day. The mountains were flushed as if in the light of sunset.
Of all the natural phenomena that we beheld in the course of
the journey, I remember none that surprised us more than this.
We could scarcely believe at first that it was not some effect
of afterglow, or some miraculous aurora of the East. But the
sun had nothing to do with that flush upon the mountains.
The glow was in the stone, and the moonlight but revealed the
local colour.

For some days before they came in sight, we had been
eagerly looking for the Theban hills ; and now, after a night
of rapid sailing, we woke one morning to find the sun rising
on the wrong side of the boat, the favourable wind dead against

SIUT TO DENVER AH. 115

us, and a picturesque chain of broken peaks upon our starboard
bow. By these signs we knew that we must have come to the
great bend in the river between How and Keneh, and that
these new mountains, so much more varied in form than those
of Middle Egypt, must be the mountains behind Denderah.
They seemed to lie upon the eastern bank, but that was an
illusion which the map disproved, and which lasted only till
the great corner was fairly turned. To turn that corner, how-
ever, in the teeth of wind and current, was no easy task, and
cost us two long days of hard tracking.

At a point about ten miles below Denderah, we saw some
thousands of fellaheen at work amid clouds of sand upon the
embankments of a new canal. They swarmed over the
mounds like ants, and the continuous murmur of their voices
came to us across the river like the humming of innumerable
bees. Others, following the path along the bank, were pouring
towards the spot in an unbroken stream. The Nile must here
be nearly half a mile in breadth ; but the engineers in Euro-
pean dress, and the overseers with long sticks in their hands,
were plainly distinguishable by the help of a glass. The tents
in which these officials were camping out during the progress
of the work gleamed white among the palms by the river-side.
Such scenes must have been common enough in the old days
when a conquering Pharaoh, returning from Libya or the land
of Kush, set his captives to raise a dyke, or excavate a lake,
or quarry a mountain. The Israelites building the massive
walls of Pithom and Rameses with bricks of their own making,
must have presented exactly such a spectacle.

That we were witnessing a case of forced labour, could not
be doubted. Those thousands yonder had most certainly been
drafted off in gangs from hundreds of distant villages, and
were but little better off, for the time being, than the captives
of the -ancient Empire. In all cases of forced labour under
the present regime, however, it seems that the labourer is paid,
though very insufficiently, for his unwilling toil ; and that his
captivity only lasts so long as the work for which he has been
pressed remains in progress. In some cases the term of service
is limited to three or four months, at the end of which time
the m-en are supposed to be returned in barges towed by Govern-

ii6 SIUT TO DENDERAH.

ment steam-tugs. It too often happens, nevertheless, that the
poor souls are left to get back how they can ; and thus many
a husband and father either perishes by the way, or is driven
to take service in some village far from home. Meanwhile his
wife and children, being scantily supported by the Sheykh el
Beled, fall into a condition of semi-serfdom ; and his little
patch of ground, left untilled through seed-time and harvest,
passes after the next inundation into the hands of a stranger.

But there is another side to this question of forced labour.
Water must be had in Egypt, no matter at what cost. If the
land is not sufficiently irrigated, the crops fail and the nation
starves. Now, the frequent construction of canals has from
immemorial time been reckoned among the first duties of an
Egyptian ruler ; but it is a duty which cannot be performed
without the willing or unwilling co-operation of several thousand
workmen. Those who are best acquainted with the character
and temper of the fellah maintain the hopelessness of looking
to him for voluntary labour of this description. Frugal, patient,
easily contented as he is, no promise of wages, however high,
would tempt him from his native village. What to him are the
needs of a district six or seven hundred miles away } His own
sh&duf is enough for his own patch, and so long as he can raise
his three little crops a year, neither he nor his family will starve.
How, then, are these necessary public works to be carried out,
unless by means of the corvee ? M. About has put an ingeni-
ous summary of this " other-side " argument into the mouth of
his ideal fellah. " It is not the Emperor," says Ahmed to the
Frenchman, " who causes the rain to descend upon your lands ;
it is the west wind — and the benefit thus conferred upon you
exacts no penalty of manual labour. But in Egypt, where the
rain from heaven falls scarcely three times in the year, it is the
prince who supplies its place to us by distributing the waters
of the Nile. This can only be done by the work of men's
hands ; and it is therefore to the interest of all that the hands
of all should be at his disposal."

We regarded it, I think, as an especial piece of good fortune,
when we found ourselves becalmed next day within three or
four miles of Denderah. Abydos comes first in order according
to the map ; but then the Temples lie seven or eight miles

j||j||||l!||iij^

ii8 SIUT TO VENDER AH.

from the river, and as we happened just thereabouts to be
making some ten miles an hour, we put off the excursion till
our return. Here, however, the ruins lay comparatively near
at hand, and in such a position that we could approach them
from below and rejoin our dahabeeyah a few miles higher up
the river. So, leaving Rels Hassan to track against the current,
we landed at the first convenient point, and finding neither
donkeys nor guides at hand, took an escort of three or four
sailors, and set off on foot.

The way was long, the day was hot, and we had only
the map to go by. Having climbed the steep bank and skirted
an extensive palm-grove, we found ourselves in a country with-
out paths or roads of any kind. The soil, squared off as usual
like a gigantic chess-board, was traversed by hundreds of tiny
water-channels, between which we had to steer our course as
best we could. Presently the last belt of palms was passed —
the plain, green with young corn and level as a lake, widened
out to the foot of the mountains — and the Temple, islanded in
that sea of rippling emerald, rose up before us upon its platform
of blackened mounds.

It was still full two miles away ; but it looked enormous —
showing from this distance as a massive, low-browed, sharply-
defined mass of dead -white masonry. The walls sloped in
slightly towards the top ; and the fagade appeared to be sup-
ported on eight square piers, with a large doorway in the centre.
If sculptured ornament, or cornice, or pictured legend enriched
those walls, we were too far off to distinguish them. All looked
strangely naked and solemn — more like a tomb than a temple.

Nor was the surrounding scene less deathlike in its solitude.
Not a tree, not a hut, not a living form broke the green
monotony of the plain. Behind the Temple, but divided from
it by a farther space of mounded ruins, rose the mountains —
pinky, aerial, with sheeny sand-drifts heaped in the hollows of
their bare buttresses, and spaces of soft blue shadow in their
misty chasms. Where the range receded, a long vista of
glittering desert opened to the Libyan horizon.

Then as we drew nearer, coming by and by to a raised
causeway which apparently connected the mounds with some
point down by the river, the details of the Temple gradually

SIOT to DENDERAH. 119

emerged into distinctness. We could now see the curve and
under-shadow of the cornice ; and a small object in front
of the fagade which looked at first sight like a monolithic
altar, resolved itself into a massive gateway of the kind
known as a single pylon. Nearer still, among some low
outlying mounds, we came upon fragments of sculptured
capitals and mutilated statues half-buried in rank grass — upon
a series of stagnant nitre-tanks and deserted workshops — upon
the telegraph-poles and wires which here come striding along
the edge of the desert and vanish southward with messages for
Nubia and the Soudan.

Egypt is the land of nitre. It is found wherever a crude-
brick mound is disturbed or an antique stone structure de-
molished. The Nile mud is strongly impregnated with it ;
and in Nubia we used to find it lying in thick talc-like flakes
upon the surface of rocks far above the present level of the
inundation. These tanks at Denderah had been sunk, we
were told, when the great Temple was excavated by Abbas
Pasha more than twenty years ago. The nitre then found
was utilised out of hand ; washed and crystallised in the tanks ;
and converted into gunpowder in the adjacent workshops.
The telegraph wires are more recent intruders, and the work
of the Khedive ; but one longed to put them out of sight, to
pull down the gunpowder sheds, and to fill up the tanks with
debris. For what had the arts of modern warfare or the
wonders of modern science to do with Hathor, the Lady
of Beauty and the Western Shades, the Nurse of Horus, the
Egyptian Aphrodite, to whom yonder mountain of wrought
stone and all these wastes were sacred ?

We were by this time near enough to see that the square
piers of the facade were neither square nor piers, but huge
round columns with human-headed capitals ; and that the
walls, instead of being plain and tomb-like, were covered with
an infinite multitude of sculptured figures. The pylon — rich
with inscriptions and bas-reliefs, but disfigured by myriads of
tiny wasps' nests, like clustered mud -bubbles — now towered
high above our heads, and led to a walled avenue cut direct
through the mounds, and sloping downwards to the main
entrance of the Temple.

siOt to denderah.

Not, however, till we stood immediately under those
ponderous columns, looking down upon the paved floor below
and up to the huge cornice that projected overhead like the
crest of an impending wave, did we realise the immense pro-
portions of the building. Lofty as it looked from a distance,
we now found that it was only the interior that had been
excavated, and that not more than two-thirds of its actual
height were visible above the mounds. The level of the
avenue was, indeed, at its lowest part full twenty feet above
that of the first great hall ; and we had still a steep temporary
staircase to go down before reaching the original pavement.

The effect of the portico as one stands at the top of this
staircase is one of overwhelming majesty. Its breadth, its
height, the massiveness of its parts, exceed in grandeur all
that one has been anticipating throughout the long two miles
of approach. The immense girth of the columns, the huge
screens which connect them, the ponderous cornice jutting
overhead, confuse the imagination, and in the absence of given
measurements ^ appear, perhaps, even more enormous than they
are. Looking up to the architrave, we see a kind of Egyptian
Panathenaic procession of carven priests and warriors, some with
standards and some with musical instruments. The winged
globe, depicted upon a gigantic scale in the curve of the cornice,
seems to hover above the central doorway. Hieroglyphs,
emblems, strange forms of Kings and Gods, cover every foot of
wall-space, frieze, and pillar. Nor does this wealth of surface-
sculpture tend in any way to diminish the general effect of size.
It would seem, on the contrary, as if complex decoration were
in this instance the natural complement to simplicity of form.
Every group, every inscription, appears to be necessary and in its
place ; an essential part of the building it helps to adorn. Most
of these details are as perfect as on the day when the last work-
man went his way, and the architect saw his design completed.
Time has neither marred the surface of the stone nor blunted

1 Sir G. Wilkinson states the total length of the Temple to be 93
paces, or 220 feet; and the width of the portico 50 paces. Murray
gives no measurements ; neither does Mariette Bey in his delightful little
" Itineraire" ; neither does Fergusson, nor Champollion, nor any other
writer to whose works I have had access.

SIUT TO DENDERAH.

the work of the chisel. Such injury as they have sustained is
from the hand of man ; and in no country has the hand of
man achieved more and destroyed more than in Egypt. The
Persians overthrew the masterpieces of the Pharaohs ; the
Copts mutilated the temples of the Ptolemies and Caesars ; the
Arabs stripped the pyramids and carried Memphis away piece-
meal. Here at Denderah we have an example of Graeco-
Egyptian work and early Christian fanaticism. Begun by
Ptolemy XI/ and bearing upon its latest ovals the name and
style of Nero, the present building was still comparatively new
when, in A.D. 379, the ancient religion was abolished by the
edict of Theodosius. It was then the most gorgeous as well
as the most recent of all those larger temples built during the
prosperous foreign rule of the last seven hundred years. It
stood, surrounded by groves of palm and acacia, within the
precincts of a vast enclosure, the walls of which, 1000 feet in
length, 35 feet in height, and 15 feet thick, are still traceable.
A dromos, now buried under twenty feet of debris, led from

1 The names of Augustus, Caligula, Tiberius, Domitian, Claudius, and
Nero are found in the royal ovals; the oldest being those of Ptolemy XI,
the founder of the present edifice, which was, however, rebuilt upon the
site of a succession of older buildings, of which the most ancient dated
back as far as the reign of Khufu, the builder of the Great Pyramid.
This fact, and the still more interesting fact that the oldest structure of all
was believed to belong to the inconceivably remote period of the Hoj'shesu,
or "followers of Horus" (/>. the petty chiefs, or princes, who ruled in
Egypt before the foundation of the first monarchy), is recorded in the
following remarkable inscription discovered by Mariette in one of the
crypts constructed in the thickness of the walls of the present temple.
The first text relates to certain festivals to be celebrated in honour of
Hathor, and states that all the ordained ceremonies had been performed
by King Thothmes III (XVIIIth dynasty) "in memory of his mother,
Hathor of Denderah. And they found the great fundamental rules of
Denderah in ancient writing, written on goatskin in the time of the
Followers of Horus. This was found in the inside of a brick wall during
the reign of King Pepi (Vlth dynasty)." In the same crypt, another
and a more brief inscription runs thus : — "Great fundamental rule of
Denderah. Restorations done by Thothmes III, according to what was
found in ancient writing of the time of King Khufu." Hereupon Mariette
remarks — " The temple of Denderah is not, then, one of the most modern
in Egypt, except in so far as it was constructed by one of the later Lagid;e.
Its origin is literally lost in the night of time." See Denderah, Deacription
Generale^ chap. i. pp. 55, 56.

122

SIJ^T TO DENDERAH.

the pylon to the portico. The pylon is there still, a partial
ruin ; but the Temple, with its roof, its staircases, and its
secret treasure-crypts, is in all essential respects as perfect as
on the day when its splendour was given over to the spoilers.

One can easily imagine
how these spoilers sacked
and ravaged all before
them ; how they dese-
crated the sacred places,
and cast down the statues
of the Goddess, and
divided the treasures of
the sanctuary. They did
not, it is true, commit
such wholesale destruc-
tion as the Persian in-
vaders of nine hundred
years before ; but they
were merciless iconoclasts,
and hacked away the face
of every figure within
easy reach both inside
and outside the building.
Among those which
escaped, however, is the
famous external bas-relief
of Cleopatra on the back
of the Temple. This
curious sculpture is now
banked up with rubbish
for its better preservation,
and can no longer be seen
by travellers. It was,
however, admirably pho-
tographed some years
ago by Signer Beati ; which photograph is faithfully repro-
duced in the annexed engraving. Cleopatra is here represented
with a headdress combining the attributes of three goddesses ;
namely the Vulture of Maut (the head of which is modelled

CLEOPATRA.

SltjT TO DENDERAH. 123

in a masterly way), the horned disc of Hathor, and the
throne of Isis. The falling mass below the headdress is
intended to represent hair dressed according to the Egyptian
fashion, in an infinite number of small plaits, each finished
off with an ornamental tag. The women of Egypt and
Nubia wear their hair so to this day, and unplait it, I am
sorry to say, not oftener than once in every eight or ten weeks.
The Nubian girls fasten each separate tail with a lump of Nile
mud daubed over with yellow ochre ; but Queen Cleopatra's
silken tresses were probably tipped with gilded wax or gum.

It is difficult to know where decorative sculpture ends and
portraiture begins in a work of this epoch. We cannot even be
certain that a portrait was intended ; though the introduction
of the royal oval in which the name of Cleopatra (Klaupatra)
is spelt with its vowel sounds in full, would seem to point that
way. If it is a portrait, then large allowance must be made for
conventional treatment. The fleshiness of the features and the
intolerable simper are common to every head of the Ptolemaic
period. The ear, too, is pattern work, and the drawing of the
figure is ludicrous. Mannerism apart, however, the face wants
for neither individuality nor beauty. Cover the mouth, and
you have an almost faultless profile. The chin and throat are
also quite lovely ; while the whole face, suggestive of cruelty,
subtlety, and voluptuousness, carries with it an indefinable
impression not only of portraiture, but of likeness.

It is not without something like a shock that one first sees
the unsightly havoc wrought upon the Hathor-headed columns
of the facade at Denderah, The massive folds of the head-gear
are there ; the ears, erect and pointed like those of a heifer, are
there ; but of the benignant face of the Goddess not a feature
remains. Ampere, describing these columns in one of his
earliest letters from Egypt, speaks of them as being still
" brilliant with colours that time had had no power to efface."
Time, however, must have been unusually busy during the thirty
years that have gone by since then ; for though we presently
found several instances of painted bas-reliefs in the small inner
chambers, I do not remember to have observed any remains of
colour (save here and there a faint trace of yellow ochre) on
the external decorations.

124 .SY^T" TO DENDERAH.

Without, all was sunshine and splendour ; within, all was
silence and mystery. A heavy, death-like smell, as of long-
imprisoned gases, met us on the threshold. By the half-light
that strayed in through the portico, we could see vague outlines
of a forest of giant columns rising out of the gloom below and
vanishing into the gloom above. Beyond these again appeared
shadowy vistas of successive halls leading away into depths of
inpenetrable darkness. It required no great courage to go
down those stairs and explore those depths with a party of
fellow-travellers ; but it would have been a gruesome place to
venture into alone.

Seen from within, the portico shows as a vast hall, fifty feet
in height and supported on twenty-four Hathor-headed columns.
Six of these, being engaged in the screen, form part of the
fagade, and are the same upon which we have been looking
from without. By degrees, as our eyes become used to the
twilight, we see here and there a capital which still preserves
the vague likeness of a gigantic female face ; while, dimly
visible on every wall, pillar, and doorway, a multitude of fan-
tastic forms — hawk-headed, ibis-headed, cow-headed, mitred,
plumed, holding aloft strange emblems, seated on thrones,
performing m)'sterious rites — seem to emerge from their places,
like things of life. Looking up to the ceiling, now smoke-
blackened and defaced, we discover elaborate paintings of
scarabaei, winged globes, and zodiacal emblems divided by
borders of intricate Greek patterns, the prevailing colours of
which are verditer and chocolate. Bands of hieroglyphic
inscriptions, of royal ovals, of Hathor heads, of mitred hawks,
of lion-headed chimeras, of divinities and kings in bas-relief,
cover the shafts of the great columns from top to bottom ; and
even here, every accessible human face, however small, has been
laboriously mutilated.

Bewildered at first sight of these profuse and mysterious
decorations, we wander round and round ; going on from the
first hall to the second, from the second to the third ; and
plunging into deeper darkness at every step. We have been
reading about these gods and emblems for weeks past — we have
studied the plan of the Temple beforehand ; yet now that we
are actually here, our book knowledge goes for nothing, and we

SIUT TO DENDERAH. 125

feel as hopelessly ignorant as if we had been suddenly landed
in a new world. Not till we have got over this first feeling of
confusion — not till, resting awhile on the base of one of the
columns, we again open out the plan of the building, do we
begin to realise the purport of the sculptures by which we are
surrounded.

The ceremonial of Egyptian worship was essentially pro-
cessional. Herein we have the central idea of every Temple,
'and the key to its construction. It was bound to contain
store -chambers in which were kept vestments, instruments,
divine emblems, and the like ; laboratories for the preparation
of perfumes and unguents ; treasuries for the safe custody of
holy vessels and precious offerings ; chambers for the reception
and purification of tribute in kind ; halls for the assembling and
marshalling of priests and functionaries ; and, for processional
purposes, corridors, staircases, courtyards, cloisters, and vast
enclosures planted with avenues of trees and surrounded by
walls which hedged in with inviolable secrecy the solemn rites
of the priesthood.

In this plan, it will be seen, there is no provision made for
anything in the form of public worship ; but then an Egyptian
Temple was not a place for public worship. It was a treasure-
house, a sacristy, a royal oratory, a place of preparation, of
consecration, of sacerdotal privacy. There, in costly shrines,
dwelt the divine images. There they were robed and unrobed ;
perfumed with incense ; visited and worshipped by the King.
On certain great days of the kalendar, as on the occasion of the
festival of the new year, or the panegyrics of the local gods,
these images were brought out, paraded along the corridors of
the temple, carried round the roof, and borne with waving of
banners, and chanting of hymns, and burning of incense, through
the sacred groves of the enclosure. Probably none were
admitted to these ceremonies save persons of royal or priestly
birth. To the rest of the community, all that took place within
those massy walls was enveloped in mystery. It may be
questioned, indeed, whether the great mass of the people had
any kind of personal religion. They may not have been rigidly
excluded from the temple-precincts, but they seem to have been
allowed no participation in the worship of the Gods. If now

126 siOt to denderah.

and then, on high festival days, they beheld the sacred bark of
the deity carried in procession round the temenos, or caught a
glimpse of moving figures and glittering ensigns in the pillared
dusk of the Hypostyle Hall, it was all they ever beheld of the
solemn services of their church.

The Temple of Denderah consists of a portico ; a hall of
entrance ; a hall of assembly ; a third hall, which may be called
the hall of the sacred boats ; one small ground floor chapel ;
and upwards of twenty side chambers of various sizes, most of
which are totally dark. Each one of these halls and chambers
bears the sculptured record of its use. Hundreds of tableaux
in bas-relief, thousands of elaborate hieroglyphic inscriptions,
cover every foot of available space on wall and ceiling and
soffit, on doorway and column, and on the lining-slabs of
passages and staircases. These precious texts contain, amid
much that is mystical and tedious, an extraordinary wealth of
indirect history. Here we find programmes of ceremonial
observances ; numberless legends of the Gods ; chronologies of
Kings with their various titles ; registers of weights and
measures ; catalogues of offerings ; recipes for the preparation
of oils and essences ; records of repairs and restorations done to
the Temple ; geographical lists of cities and provinces ; inven-
tories of treasure, and the like. The hall of assembly contains
a kalendar of festivals, and sets forth with studied precision the
rites to be performed on each recurring anniversary. On the
ceiling of the portico we find an astronomical zodiac ; on the
walls of a small temple on the roof, the whole history of the
resurrection of Osiris, together with the order of prayer for the
twelve hours of the night, and a kalendar of the festivals of
Osiris in all the principal cities of Upper and Lower Egypt.
Seventy years ago, these inscriptions were the puzzle and despair
of the learned ; but since modern science has plucked out the
heart of its mystery, the whole Temple lies before us as an
open volume filled to overflowing with strange and quaint and
heterogeneous matter — a Talmud in sculptured stone. ^

1 See Mariette's Denderah, which contains the whole of these multi-
tudinous inscriptions in i66 plates ; also a selection of some of the most
interesting in Brugsch and Dumichen's Recueil de Monuments Egyptiens
and Ceograpliische Inschriften, 1862-3-5-6.

SICt to DENDERAH. 127

Given such help as Mariette's handbook affords, one can
trace out most of these curious things, and identify the uses of
every hall and chamber throughout the building. The King,
in his double character of Pharaoh and high priest, is the hero
of every sculptured scene. Wearing sometimes the truncated
crown of Lower Egypt, sometimes the helmet-crown of Upper
Egypt, and sometimes the pschent, which is a combination of
both, he figures in every tableau and heads every procession.
Beginning with the sculptures of the portico, we see him arrive,
preceded by his five royal standards. He wears his long robe ;
his sandals are on his feet ; he carries his staff in his hand.
Two goddesses receive him at the door and conduct him into
the presence of Thoth, the ibis-headed, and Horus, the hawk-
headed, who pour upon him a double stream of the waters of
life. Thus purified, he is crowned by the Goddesses of Upper
and Lower Egypt, and by them consigned to the local deities
of Thebes and Heliopolis, who usher him into the supreme
presence of Hathor. He then presents various offerings and
recites certain prayers ; whereupon the goddess promises him
length of days, everlasting renown, and other good things.
We next see him, always with the same smile and always in
the same attitude, doing homage to Osiris, to Horus and other
divinities. He presents them with flowers, wine, bread, incense ;
while they in return promise him life, joy, abundant harvests,
victory, and the love of his people. These pretty speeches —
chefs d'ceuvre of diplomatic style and models of elegant flattery
— are repeated over and over again in scores of hieroglyphic
groups. Mariette, however, sees in them something more than
the language of the court grafted upon the language of the
hierarchy ; he detects the language of the schools, and dis-
covers in the utterances here ascribed to the King and the
Gods a reflection of that contemporary worship of the Beauti-
ful, the Good, and the True, which characterised the teaching
of the Alexandrian Museum.^

1 Hathor (or more correctly Hat-hor, i.e. the abode of Horus), is not
merely the Aphrodite of ancient Egypt : she is the pupil of the eye of the
Sun ; she is the goddess of that beneficent planet whose rising heralds the
waters of the inundation ; she represents the eternal youth of nature, and
is the direct personification of the T?eautiful. She is also Goddess of Truth.

sjOt to dendkrah.

Passing on from the portico to the Hall of Assembly, we
enter a region of still dimnuT twilight, beyond which all is
dark. In the side-chambers, where the heat is intense and the
atmosphere stifling, we can see only by the help of lighted
candles. These rooms are about twenty feet in length ; separ-
ate, like prison cells ; and perfectly dark. The sculptures
which cover their walls are, however, as numerous as those in
the outer halls, and indicate in each instance the purpose for
which the room was designed. Thus in the laboratories we
find bas-reliefs of flasks and vases, and figures carrying
perfume-bottles of the familiar aryballos form ; in the tribute-
chambers, offerings of lotus-lilies, wheat sheaves, maize, grapes,
and pomegranates ; in the oratories of Isis, Amen, and Sekhet,
representations of these divinities enthroned, and receiving the
homage of the King ; while in the treasury, both King and
Queen appear laden with precious gifts of caskets, necklaces,
pectoral ornaments, sistrums, and the like. It would seem that
the image-breakers had no time to spare for these dark cells ;
for here the faces and figures are unmutilated, and in some
places even the original colouring remains in excellent preser-
vation. The complexion of the goddesses, for instance, is
painted of a light buff; the King's skin is dark-red ; that of
Amen, blue. Isis wears a rich robe of the well-known Indian
pine-pattern ; Sekhet figures in a many-coloured garment
curiously diapered ; Amen is clad in red and green chain
armour. The skirts of the goddesses are inconceivably scant ;
but they are rich in jewellery, and their headdresses, necklaces,
and bracelets are full of minute and interesting detail. In one

«' I offer the Truth to thee, O Goddess of Denderah !" says the King, in
one of the inscriptions of the sanctuary of the Sistrum ; " for truth is thy
work, and thou thyself art Truth." Lastly, her emblem is the Sistrum,
and the sound of the Sistrum, according to Plutarch, was supposed to
terrify and expel Typhon (the evil principle) ; just as in medieeval times
the ringing of church-bells was supposed to scare Beelzebub and his crew.
From this point of view, the Sistrum becomes typical of the triumph of
Good over Evil. Mariette, in his analysis of the decorations and inscrip-
tions of this temple, points out how the builders were influenced by the
prevailing philosophy of the age, and how they veiled the Platonism of
Alexandria beneath the symbolism of the ancient religion. The Hat-hor
of Denderah was in fact worshipped in a sense unknown to the Egyptians
of pre-Ptolemaic times.

SIUT TO DEN DE RAH.

129

of the four oratories dedicated to Sekhet, the King is depicted
in the act of offering a pectoral ornament of so rich and elegant
a design that, had there been time and daylight to spare, the
Writer would fain have copied it.

In the centre room at the extreme end of the Temple, ex-
actly opposite the main entrance, lies the oratory of Hathor.
This dark chamber, into which no ray of daylight has ever
penetrated, contains the sacred niche, the Holy of Holies, in
which was kept the great Golden Sistrum of the Goddess.
The King alone was privileged to take out that mysterious
emblem. Having done so, he enclosed it in a costly shrine,
covered it with a thick veil, and placed it in one of the sacred
boats of which we find elaborate representations sculptured on
the walls of the hall in which they were kept. These boats,
which were constructed of cedar-wood, gold, and silver, were
intended to be hoisted on wrought poles, and so carried in
procession on the shoulders of the priests. The niche is still
there — a mere hole in the wall, some three feet square and
about eight feet from the ground.

Thus, candle in hand, we make the circuit of these outer
chambers. In each doorway, besides the place cut out for the
bolt, we find a circular hole drilled above and a quadrant-
shaped hollow below, where once upon a time the pivot of the
door turned in its socket. The paved floors, torn up by
treasure-seekers, are full of treacherous holes and blocks of
broken stone. The ceilings are very lofty. In the corridors a
dim twilight reigns ; but all is pitch-dark beyond these gloomy
thresholds. Hurrying along by the light of a few flaring
candles, one cannot but feel oppressed by the strangeness and
awfulness of the place. We speak with bated breath, and
even our chattering Arabs for once are silent. The very air
tastes as if it had been imprisoned here for centuries.

Finally, we take the staircase on the northern side of the
Temple, in order to go up to the roof Nothing that we have
yet seen surprises and delights us so much, I think, as this
staircase.

We have hitherto been tracing in their order all the pre-
parations for a great religious ceremony. We have seen the
King enter the Temple ; undergo the symbolical purification ;

I30 SICt to DENDERAH.

receive the twofold crown ; and say his prayers to each divinity
in turn. We have followed him into the laboratories, the
oratories, and the holy of holies. All that he has yet done,
however, is preliminary. The procession is yet to come, and
here we have it. Here, sculptured on the walls of this dark
staircase, the crowning ceremony of Egyptian worship is
brought before our eyes in all its details. Here, one by one,
we have the standard-bearers, the hierophants with the offer-
ings, the priests, the whole long, wonderful procession, with the
King marching at its head. Fresh and uninjured as if they
had but just left the hand of the sculptor, these figures — each in
his habit as he lived, each with his foot upon the step — mount
with us as we mount, and go beside us all the way. Their
attitudes are so natural, their forms so roundly cut, that one
could almost fancy them in motion as the lights flicker by.
Surely there must be some one weird night in the year when
they step out from their places, and take up the next verse of
their chanted hymn, and, to the sound of instruments long
mute and songs long silent, pace the moonlit roof in ghostly
order !

The sun is already down and the crimson light has faded,
when at length we emerge upon that vast terrace. The roofing-
stones are gigantic. Striding to and fro over some of the
biggest, our Idle Man finds several that measure seven paces in
length by four in breadth. In yonder distant corner, like a
little stone lodge in a vast courtyard, stands a small temple
supported on Hathor- headed columns ; while at the eastern
end, forming a second and loftier stage, rises the roof of the
portico.

Meanwhile, the afterglow is fading. The mountains are
yet clothed in an atmosphere of tender half-light ; but mysteri-
ous shadows are fast creeping over the plain, and the mounds
of the ancient city lie at our feet, confused and tumbled, like
the waves of a dark sea. How high it is here — how lonely —
how silent 1 Hark that thin plaintive cry ! It is the wail of a
night -wandering jackal. See how dark it is yonder, in the
direction of the river ! Quick, quick ! We have lingered too
long. We must be gone at once ; for we are already benighted.

We ought to have gone down by way of the opposite stair-

SIOT to DENDER'AH.

131

case (which is lined with sculptures of the descending procession)
and out through the Temple ; but there is no time to do
anything but scramble down by a breach in the wall at a point
where the mounds yet lie heaped against the south side of the
building. And now the dusk steals on so rapidly that before
we reach the bottom we can hardly see where to tread. The
huge side-wall of the portico seems to tower above us to the
very heavens. We catch a glimpse of two colossal figures, one
lion-headed and the other headless, sitting outside with their
backs to the Temple. Then, making with all speed for the

SHEVKH SELfM.

open plain, we clamber over scattered blocks and among
shapeless mounds. Presently night overtakes us. The moun-
tains disappear ; the Temple is blotted out ; and we have only
the faint starlight to guide us. We stumble on, however,
keeping all close together ; firing a gun every now and then,
in the hope of being heard by those in the boats ; and as
thoroughly and undeniably lost as the Babes in the Wood.

At last, just as some are beginning to knock up and all to
despair, Talhamy fires his last cartridge. An answering shot
replies from near by ; a wandering light appears in the distance ;
and presently a whole bevy of dancing lanterns and friendly

132 siCt to denderah.

brown faces comes gleaming out from among a plantation of
sugar-canes, to welcome and guide us home. Dear, sturdy,
faithful little Refs Hassan, honest Khalifeh, laughing Salame,
gentle Mehemet Ali, and Musa " black but comely " — they were
all there. What a shaking of hands there was — what a gleam-
ing of white teeth — what a shower of mutually unintelligible
congratulations ! For my own part, I may say with truth that
I was never much more rejoiced at a meeting in my life.

CHAPTER VIII.

THEBES AND KARNAK-

OOMING on deck the third morning after leaving Denderah,
we found the dahabeeyah decorated with palm-branches, our
sailors in their holiday turbans, and Reis Hassan en grande
tenue ; that is to say in shoes and stockings, which he only
wore on very great occasions.

" Neharak-sa'id — good morning — Luxor !" said he, all in one
breath.

It was a hot, hazy morning, with dim ghosts of mountains
glowing through the mist, and a warm wind blowing.

We ran to the side ; looked out eagerly ; but could see
nothing. Still the Captain smiled and nodded ; and the sailors
ran hither and thither, sweeping and garnishing ; and Egendi,
to whom his worst enemy could not have imputed the charge
of bashfulness, said " Luxor — kharuf ^ — all right !" every time
he came near us.

We had read and dreamed so much about Thebes, and it
had always seemed so far away, that but for this delicate
allusion to the promised sheep, we could hardly have believed
we were really drawing nigh unto those famous shores. About
ten, however, the mist was lifted away like a curtain, and we
saw to the left a rich plain studded with palm-groves ; to the
right a broad margin of cultivated lands bounded by a bold
range of limestone mountains ; and on the farthest horizon
another range, all grey and shadowy.

" Karnak — Gournah — Luxor!" says Reis Hassan triumph-
* Arabic^ "kharuf," pronounced "haroof" — English, sheep.

134 THEBES AND KARNAK.

antly, pointing in every direction at once. Talhamy tries to
show us Medinet Habu and the Memnonium. The Painter
vows he can see the heads of the sitting Colossi and the entrance
to the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings.

We, meanwhile, stare bewildered, incredulous ; seeing none
of these things ; finding it difficult, indeed, to believe that any
one else sees them. The river widens away before us ; the
flats are green on either side ; the mountains are pierced with
terraces of rock-cut tombs ; while far away inland, apparently
on the verge of the dcaert, we see here a clump of sycamores —
yonder a dark hillock — midway between both a confused heap
of something that may be either fallen rock or fallen masonry ;
but nothing that looks like a Temple, nothing to indicate that
we are already within recognisable distance of the grandest
ruins in the world.

Presently, however, as the boat goes on, a massive, window-
less structure which looks (Heaven preserve us !) just like a
brand-new fort or prison, towers up above the palm-groves to
the left. This, we are told, is one of the propylons of Karnak ;
while a few whitewashed huts and a little crowd of masts now
coming into sight a mile or so higher up, mark the position of
Luxor. Then up capers Egendi with his never-failing " Luxor
— kharuf — all right!" to fetch down the tar and darabukkeh.
The captain claps his hands. A circle is formed on the lower
deck. The men, all smiles, strike up their liveliest chorus, and
so, with barbaric music and well-filled sails, and flags flying,
and green boughs waving overhead, we make our triumphal
entry into Luxor.

The top of another pylon ; the slender peak of an obelisk ;
a colonnade of giant pillars half-buried in the soil ; the white
houses of the English, American, and Prussian Consuls, each
with its flagstaff and ensign ; a steep slope of sandy shore ; a
background of mud walls and pigeon-towers ; a foreground of
native boats and gaily-painted dahabeeyahs lying at anchor —
such, as we sweep by, is our first panoramic view of this famous
village. A group of turbaned officials sitting in the shade of
an arched doorway rise and salute us as we pass. The as-
sembled dahabeeyahs dozing with folded sails, like sea-birds
asleep, are roused to spasmodic activity. Flags are lowered ;

JHEBES AND KARNAK.

135

guns are fired ; all Luxor is startled from its midday siesta.
Then, before the smoke has had time to clear off, up comes the
Bagstones in gallant form ; whereupon the dahabeeyahs blaze
away again as before.

COLONNAnE OF HOREMHRB, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY BRUGSCH-BEY.

And now there is a rush of donkeys and donkey-boys,
beggars, guides, and antiquity-dealers, to the shore — the children
screaming for backshish ; the dealers exhibiting strings of
imitation scarabs ; the donkey-boys vociferating the names
and praises of their beasts ; all alike regarding us as their
lawful prey.

" Hi, lady ! Yankee-Doodle donkey; try Yankee-Doodle !"
cries one.

" Far-away Moses ! " yells another. " Good donkey— fast
donkey— best donkey in Luxor !"

" This Prince of Wales's donkey !" shouts a third, hauling
forward a decrepit little weak-kneed, moth-eaten looking animal,
about as good to ride upon as a towel-horse. " First-rate
donkey! splendid donkey! God save the Queen! Hurrah!"

But neither donkeys nor scarabs are of any importance in

136 THEBES AND KARNAK.

our eyes just now, compared with the letters we hope to find
awaiting us on shore. No sooner, therefore, are the boats
made fast than we are all off, some to the British Consulate
and some to the Poste Restante, from both of which we return
rich and happy.

Meanwhile we proposed to spend only twenty-four hours
in Luxor. We were to ride round Karnak this first afternoon ;
to cross to Medinet Habu and the Ramesseum ^ to-morrow
morning ; and to sail again as soon after midday as possible.
We hope thus to get a general idea of the topography of
Thebes, and to carry away a superficial impression of the archi-
tectural style of the Pharaohs. It would be but a glimpse ;
yet that glimpse was essential. For Thebes represents the
great central period of Egyptian art. The earlier styles lead
up to that point ; the later depart from it ; and neither the
earlier nor the later are intelligible without it. At the same
time, however, travellers bound for the Second Cataract do
well to put off everything like a detailed study of Thebes till
the time of coming back. For the present, a rapid survey of
the three principal groups of ruins is enough. It supplies the
necessary link. It helps one to a right understanding of Edfu,
of Philae, of Abu Simbel. In a word, it enables one to put
things in their right places ; and this, after all, is a mental
process which every traveller must perform for himself

Thebes, I need scarcely say, was built like London on
both sides of the river. Its original extent must have been
very great ; but its public buildings, its quays, its thousands
of private dwellings, are gone and have left few traces. The
secular city, which was built of crude brick, is represented by
a few insignificant mounds ; while of the sacred edifices, five
large groups of limestone ruins — three on the western bank
and two on the eastern, together with the remains of several
small temples and a vast multitude of tombs — are all that
remain in permanent evidence of its ancient splendour. Luxor

^ This famous building is supposed by some to be idemical both with
the Memnonium of Strabo and the Tomb of Osymandias as described by
Diodorus Siculus. Champollion, however, following the sense of the
hieroglyphed legends, in which it is styled " The House of Rameses " (the
Second), has given to it the more appropriate name of the Ramesseum.

THEBES AND KARNAK. 137

is a modern Arab village occupying the site of one of the oldest
of these five ruins. It stands on the eastern bank, close
against the river, about two miles south of Karnak and nearly
opposite the famous sitting Colossi of the Western plain. On
the opposite bank lie Gournah, the Ramesseum, and Medinet
Habu. A glance at the map will do more than pages of
explanation to show the relative position of these ruins. The
Temple of Gournah, it will be seen, is almost vis-a-vis of
Karnak. The Ramesseum faces about half-way between
Karnak and Luxor. Medinet Habu is placed farther to the
south than any building on the eastern side of the river.
Behind these three western groups, reaching far and wide
along the edge of the Libyan range, lies the great Theban
Necropolis ; while farther back still, in the radiating valleys on
the other side of the mountains, are found the Tombs of the
Kings. The distance between Karnak and Luxor is a little
less than two miles ; while from Medinet Habu to the Temple
of Gournah may be roughly guessed at something under four.
We have here, therefore, some indication of the extent, though
not of the limits, of the ancient city.

Luxor is a large village inhabited by a mixed population
of Copts and Arabs, and doing a smart trade in antiquities.
The temple has here formed the nucleus of the village, the older
part of which has grown up in and about the ruins. The
grand entrance faces north, looking down towards Karnak.
The twin towers of the great propylon, dilapidated as they are,
stripped of their cornices, encumbered with debris, are magnifi-
cent still. In front of them, one on each side of the central
gateway, sit two helmeted colossi, battered, and featureless, and
buried to the chin, like two of the Proud in the doleful Fifth
Circle. A few yards in front of these again stands a solitary
obelisk, also half-buried. The colossi are of black granite ;
the obelisk is of red, highly polished, and covered on all four
sides with superb hieroglyphs in three vertical columns. These
hieroglyphs are engraved with the precision of the finest gem.
They are cut to a depth of about two inches in the outer
columns, and five inches in the central column of the inscrip-
tion. The true height of this wonderful monolith is over
seventy feet, between thirty and forty of which are hidden

THEBES AND KARNAK. 139

under the accumulated soil of many centuries. Its companion
obelisk, already scaling away by imperceptible degrees under
the skyey influences of an alien climate, looks down with
melancholy indifference upon the petty revolutions and counter-
revolutions of the Place de la Concorde. On a line with the two
black colossi, but some fifty feet or so farther to the west, rises
a third and somewhat smaller head of chert or limestone, the
fellow to which is doubtless hidden among the huts that encroach
half-way across the face of the eastern tower. The whole
outer surface of these towers is covered with elaborate sculptures
of gods and men, horses and chariots, the pageantry of triumph
and the carnage of war. The King in his chariot draws his
terrible bow, or slays his enemies on foot, or sits enthroned,
receiving the homage of his court. Whole regiments armed
with lance and shield march across the scene. The foe flies in
disorder. The King, attended by his fan-bearers, returns in
state, and the priests burn incense before him.

This king is Rameses the Second, called Sesostris and
Osymandias by ancient writers, and best known to history as
Rameses the Great. His actual names and titles as they stand
upon the monuments are Ra-user-ma Sotp-en-Ra Ra-messu
Mer-Amen ; that is to say, " Ra strong in Truth, Approved of
Ra, Son of Ra, Beloved of Amen."

The battle-scenes here represented relate to that memorable
campaign against the Kheta which forms the subject of the
famous Third Sallier Papyrus,^ and is commemorated upon the
walls of almost every temple built by this monarch. Separated
from his army and surrounded by the enemy, the King, attended
only by his chariot-driver, is said to have six times charged
the foe — to have hewn them down with his sword of might —
to have trampled them like straw beneath his horse's feet — to
have dispersed them single-handed, like a god. Two thousand
five hundred chariots were there, and he overthrew them ; one
hundred thousand warriors, and he scattered them. Those
that he slew not with his hand, he chased unto the water's

1 Translated into French by the late Vicomte de Rougd under the title
of Z<? Poeme de Pentaour, 1856; into English by Mr. Goodwin, 1858;
and again by Professor Lushington in 1874. See Records 0/ the Pasty
vol. ii.

f4o THEBES AND KARNAK.

edge, causing them to leap to destruction as leaps the crocodile.
Such was the immortal feat of Rameses, and such the chronicle
written by the Royal Scribe, Pentaur.

Setting aside the strain of Homeric exaggeration which
runs through this narrative, there can be no doubt that it records
some brilliant deed of arms actually performed by the King
within sight, though not within reach, of his army ; and the
hieroglyphic texts interpersed among these tableaux state that
the events depicted took place on the fifth day of the month
Epiphi, in the fifth year of his reign. By this we must under-
stand the fifth year of his sole reign, which would be five years
after the death of his father, Seti I, with whom he had, from
an early age, been associated on the throne. He was a man
in the prime of life at the time of this famous engagement,
which was fought under the walls of Kadesh on the Orontes ;
and the bas-relief sculptures show him to have been accompanied
by several of his sons, who, though evidently very young, are
represented in their war-chariots fully armed and taking part
in the battle.^

The mutilated colossi are portrait statues of the conqueror.
The obelisk, in the pompous style of Egyptian dedications,
proclaims that " The Lord of the World, Guardian-Sun of
Truth, approved of Ra, has built this edifice in honour of his
Father Amen-Ra, and has erected to him these two great
obelisks of stone in face of the house of Rameses in the City
of Ammon."

So stately was the approach made by Rameses the Great to
the temple founded about a hundred and fifty years before his
time by Amenhotep HI. He also built the courtyard upon
which this pylon opened, joining it to the older part of the
building in such wise that the original first court became now the
second court, while next in order came the portico, the hall of
assembly, and the sanctuary. By and by, when the long line of

1 According to the great inscription of Abydos translated by Professor
Maspero, Rameses II would seem to have been in some sense King from
his birth, as if the throne of Egypt came to him through his mother, and
as if his father, Seti I, had reigned for him during his infancy as King-
Regent. Some inscriptions, indeed, show him to have received homage
even before his birth.

THEBES AND KARNAK. 141

Rameses had passed away, other and later kings put their hands
to the work. The names of Shabaka (Sabaco), of Ptolemy
Philopater, and of Alexander the Younger, appear among the
later inscriptions ; while those of Amenhotep IV (Khu-en-Aten),.
Horemheb, and Seti, the father of Rameses the Great, are found
in the earlier parts of the building. It was in this way that
an Egyptian temple grew from age to age, owing a colonnade
to this king and a pylon to that, till it came in time to
represent the styles of many periods. Hence, too, that frequent
irregularity of plan, which, unless it could be ascribed to the
caprices of successive builders, would form so unaccountable a
feature in Egyptian architecture. In the present instance, the
pylon and courtyard of Rameses II are set at an angle of five
degrees to the courtyard and sanctuary of Amenhotep III.
This has evidently been done to bring the Temple of Luxor
into a line with the Temple of Karnak, in order that the two
might be connected by means of that stupendous avenue of
sphinxes, the scattered remains of which yet strew the course
of the ancient roadway.

As I have already said, these half- buried pylons, this
solitary obelisk, those giant heads rising in ghastly resurrection
before the gates of the Temple, were magnificent still. But it
was as the magnificence of a splendid prologue to a poem of
which only garbled fragments remain. Beyond that entrance
lay a smoky, filthy, intricate labyrinth of lanes and passages.
Mud hovels, mud pigeon- towers, mud yards, and a mud
mosque, clustered like wasps' nests in and about the ruins.
Architraves sculptured with royal titles supported the roofs of
squalid cabins. Stately capitals peeped out from the midst of
sheds in which buffaloes, camels, donkeys, dogs, and human
beings were seen herding together in unsavoury fellowship.
Cocks crew, hens cackled, pigeons cooed, turkeys gobbled,
children swarmed, women were baking and gossiping, and all the
sordid routine of Arab life was going on, amid winding alleys
that masked the colonnades and defaced the inscriptions of the
Pharaohs. To trace the plan of this part of the building was
then impossible.

All communication being cut off between the courts and
the portico, we had to go round outside and through a door at

142 THEBES AND KARNAK.

the farther end of the Temple, in order to reach the sanctuary
and the adjoining chambers. The Arab who kept the key
provided an inch or two of candle. For it was very dark in
there ; the roof being still perfect, with a large, rambling,
modern house built on the top of it — so that if this part of the
Temple was ever partially lighted, as at Denderah and else-
where, by small wedge-like openings in the roof, even those
faint gleams were excluded.

The sanctuary, which was rebuilt in the reign of Alexander
^gus ; some small side chambers ; and a large hall, which was
perhaps the hall of assembly, were all that remained under
"Coverof the original roofing-stones. Some half-buried and broken
columns on the side next the river showed, however, that this
end was formerly surrounded by a colonnade. The sanctuary
— an oblong granite chamber with its own separate roof —
stands enclosed in a larger hall, like a box within a box, and
is covered inside and outside with bas-reliefs. These sculptures
(among which I observed a kneeling figure of the king,
offering a kneeling image to Amen Ra) are executed in the
mediocre style of the Ptolemies. That is to say, the forms are
more natural but less refined than those of the Pharaonic
period. The limbs are fleshy, the joints large, the features
insignificant. Of actual portraiture one cannot detect a trace ;
while every face wears the same objectionable smirk which
■disfigures the Cleopatra of Denderah.

In the large hall, which I have called the Hall of Assembly,
one is carried back to the time of the founder. Between
Amenhotep III and Alexander yEgus there lies a great gulf
of 1 200 years ; and their styles are as widely separated
as their reigns. The merest novice could not possibly
mistake the one for the other. Nothing is, of course, more
•common than to find Egyptian and Graeco-Egyptian work side
by side in the same temple ; but nowhere are the distinctive
characteristics of each brought into stronger contrast than in
these dark chambers of Luxor. In the sculptures that line the
hall of Amenhotep we find the pure lines, the severe and
slender forms, the characteristic heads, of a period when the
art, having as yet neither gained nor lost by foreign influences,
was entirely Egyptian. The subjects relate chiefly to the

THEBES AND KARNAK. 143

infancy of the King ; but it is difficult to see anything properly
by the light of a candle tied to the end of a stick ; and here,
where the bas-relief is so low and the walls are so high, it is
almost impossible to distinguish the details of the upper tableaux.

I could make out, however, that Amen, Maut, and their
son Khonsu, the three personages of the Theban triad, are the
presiding deities of these scenes ; and that they are in some
way identified with the fortunes of Thothmes IV, his queen,
and their son Amenhotep III. Amenhotep is born, apparently,
under the especial protecti«?n of Maut, the Divine Mother ;
brought up with the youthful god Khonsu ; and received by
Amen as the brother and equal of his own divine son. I think
it was in this hall that I observed a singular group representing
Amen and Maut in an attitude symbolical perhaps of troth-
plight, or marriage. They sit face to face, the goddess holding
in her right hand the left hand of the god, while in her left
hand she supports his right elbow. Their thrones, meanwhile,
rest on the heads, and their feet are upheld on the hands of
two female genii. It is significant that Rameses III and one
of the ladies of his so-called hareem are depicted in the same
attitude in one of the famous domestic subjects sculptured on
the upper storeys of the Pavilion at Medinet Habu.

We saw this interesting Temple much too cursorily ; yet we
gave more time to it than the majority of those who year after
year anchor for days together close under its majestic columns.
If the whole building could be transported bodily to some
point between Memphis and Siut where the river is bare of
ruins, it would be enthusiastically visited. Here it is eclipsed
by the wonders of Karnak and the western bank, and is
undeservedly neglected. Those parts of the original building
which yet remain are, indeed, peculiarly precious ; for Amen-
hotep, or Amunoph, the Third, was one of the great builder-
kings of Egypt, and we have here one of the few extant
specimens of his architectural work.^

^ The ruins of the Great Temple of Luxor have undergone a complete
transformation since the above description was written ; Professor Maspero,
during the two last years of his official rule as successor to the late
Mariette-Pasha, having done for this magnificent relic of Pharaonic times
what his predecessor did for the more recent Temple of Edfoo. The diffi-
culties of carrying out this great undertaking were so great as to appear at

144 THEBES AND KARNAK.

The Coptic quarter of Luxor lies north of the great pylon,
and partly skirts the river. It is cleaner, wider, more airy
than that of the Arabs. The Prussian Consul is a Copt ; the
polite postmaster is a Copt ; and in a modest lodging built
half beside and half over the Coptic church, lives the Coptic
Bishop. The postmaster (an ungainly youth in a European
suit so many sizes too small that his arms and legs appeared
to be sprouting out at the ends of his garments) was profuse
in his offers of service. He undertook to forward letters to us
at Assuan, Korosko, and Wady Halfah, where post-offices had
lately been established. And he kept his promise, I am bound
to say, with perfect punctuality ; — always adding some queer
little complimentary message on the outer wrapper, such as

first sight almost insurmountable. The fellaheen refused at first to sell
their houses ; Mustapha Aga asked the exorbitant price of ^3000 for his
Consular residence, built as it was between the columns of Horemheb
facing the river ; and for no pecuniary consideration whatever was it
possible to purchase the right of pulling down the mosque in the first great
courtyard of the Temple. After twelve months of negotiation, the fellaheen
were at last bought out on fair terms, each proprietor receiving a stated
price for his dwelling and a piece of land elsewhere, upon which to build
another. Some thirty families were thus got rid of, about eight or ten
only refusing to leave at any price. The work of demolition was begun in
1885. In 1886, the few families yet lingering in the ruins followed the
example of the rest ; and in the course of that season the Temple was
cleared from end to end, only the little native mosque being left standing
within the precincts, and Mustapha Aga's house on the side next the
landing-place. Professor Maspero's resignation followed in 1887, since
when the work has been carried on by his successor, M. Grebaut, with the
result that in place of a crowded, sordid, unintelligible labyrinth of mud-
huts, yards, stables, alleys, and dung-heaps, a noble Temple, second only
to that of Karnak for grandeur of design and beauty of proportion, now
marshals its avenues of columns and uplifts its sculptured architraves along
the crest of the ridge which here rises high above the eastern bank of the
Nile. Some of those columns, now that they are cleared down to the
level of the original pavement, measure 57 feet in the shaft; and in the
great courtyard built by Rameses II, which measures 190 feet by 170, a
series of beautiful colossal statues of that Pharaoh in highly polished red
granite have been discovered, some yet standing in situ, having been built
into the walls of mud structures and imbedded (for who shall say how many
centuries ?) in a sepulchre of ignoble clay. Last of all, Mustapha Aga, the
kindly and popular old British Consul, whose hospitality will long be remem-
bered by English travellers, died about twelve months since, and the house
in which he entertained so many English visitors, and upon which he set
so high a value, is even now in course of demolition.

THEBES AND KARNAK. 145

■"I hope you well my compliments ;" or "Wishes you good
news pleasant voyage." As a specimen of his literary style I
copied the following notice, of which it was evident that he
was justly proud : —

" Notice : On the commandation. We have ordered the
post stations in lower Egypt from Assiut to Cartoom. Belong-
ing to the Post Kedevy Egyptian in a good order. Now to
pay for letters in lower Egypt is as in upper Egypt twice.
Means that the letters which goes from here far than Asiut ;
must pay for it two piastres per ten grs. Also that which
goes far than Cartoom. The letters which goes between Asiut
and Cartoom ; must pay only one piastre per ten grs. This
and that is, to buy stamps from the Post and put it upon the
letter. Also if somebody wishes to send letters insuranced,
must two piastres more for any letter. There is orderation in
the Post to receive the letters which goes to Europe, America
and Asia, as England France, Italy Germany, Syria, Con-
stantinople etc. Also to send newspapers patterns and other
things. Luxor the ist January 1874. L'Ispettore,M. Adda."

This young man begged for a little stationery and a
pen-knife at parting. We had, of course, much pleasure in
presenting him with such a modest testimonial. We after-
wards learned that he levied the same little tribute on ev&ry
dahabeeyah that came up the river ; so I conclude that he
must by this time have quite an interesting collection of small
cutlery.

From the point where the railroad ends, the Egyptian and
Nubian mails are carried by runners stationed at distances of
four miles all along the route. Each man runs his four miles,
and at the end thereof finds the next man ready to snatch up
his bag and start off at full speed immediately. The next
man transfers it in like manner to the next ; and so it goes by
day and night without a break, till it reaches the first railway
station. Each runner is supposed to do his four miles in half-
an-hour, and the mail which goes out every morning from
Luxor reaches Cairo in six days. Considering that Cairo was
450 miles away, that 268 miles of this distance had to be
done on foot, and that the trains went only once a day, we
thought this a very creditable speed.

146 THEBES AND KARNAK.

In the afternoon we took donkeys, and rode out to Karnak.
Our way lay through the bazaar, which was the poorest we
had yet seen. It consisted of only a few open sheds, in one
of which, seated on a mud-built divan, cross-legged and turban-
less like a row of tumbler mandarins, we saw five of our sailors
under the hands of the Luxor barber. He had just lathered
all five heads, and was complacently surveying the effect of
his work, much as an artistic cook might survey a dish of
particularly successful meringues a la creme. The meringues
looked very sheepish when we laughed and passed by.

Next came the straggling suburb where the dancing girls
most do congregate. These damsels, in gaudy garments of
emerald green, bright rose, and flaming yellow, were squatting
outside their cabins or lounging unveiled about the thresholds
of two or three dismal dens of cafes in the market-place. They
showed their teeth, and laughed familiarly in our faces. Their
eyebrows were painted to meet on the bridge of the nose ;
their eyes were blackened round with kohl ; their cheeks were
extravagantly rouged ; their hair was gummed, and greased,
and festooned upon their foreheads, and plaited all over in
innumerable tails. Never before had we seen anything in
female form so hideous. One of these houris was black ; and
she looked quite beautiful in her blackness, compared with the
painting and plastering of her companions.

We now left the village behind, and rode out across a wide
plain, barren and hillocky in some parts ; overgrown in others
with coarse halfeh grass ; and dotted here and there with
clumps of palms. The Nile lay low and out of sight, so that
the valley seemed to stretch away uninterruptedly to the
mountains on both sides. Now leaving to the left a Sheykh's
tomb, topped by a little cupola and shaded by a group of
tamarisks ; now following the bed of a dry watercourse ; now
skirting shapeless mounds that indicated the site of ruins un-
explored, the road, uneven but direct, led straight to Karnak.
At every rise in the ground we saw the huge propylons towering
higher above the palms. Once, but for only a few moments,
there came into sight a confused and wide-spread mass of ruins,
as extensive, apparently, as the ruins of a large town. Then
our way dipped into a sandy groove bordered by mud- walls

THEBES AND KARNAK, 147

and plantations of dwarf- palms. All at once this groove
widened, became a stately avenue guarded by a double file of
shattered sphinxes, and led towards a lofty pylon standing up
alone against the sky.

Close beside this grand gateway, as if growing there on
purpose, rose a thicket of sycamores and palms ; while beyond
it were seen the twin pylons of a Temple. The sphinxes were
colossal, and measured about ten feet in length. One or two
were ram-headed. Of the rest — some forty or fifty in number
— all were headless, some split asunder, some overturned, others
so mutilated that they looked like torrent-worn boulders. This
avenue once reached from Luxor to Karnak. Taking into
account the distance (which is just two miles from Temple to
Temple) and the short intervals at which the sphinxes are
placed, there cannot originally have been fewer than five hundred
of them ; that is to say two hundred and fifty on each side of
the road.

Dismounting for a few minutes, we went into the Temple ;
glanced round the open courtyard with its colonnade of pillars ;
peeped hurriedly into some ruinous side-chambers ; and then
rode on. Our books told us that we had seen the small
Temple of Rameses the Third. It would have been called
large anywhere but at Karnak.

I seem to remember the rest as if it had all happened in
a dream. Leaving the small Temple, we turned towards the
river, skirted the mud-walls of the native village, and approached
the Great Temple by way of its main entrance. Here we
entered upon what had once been another great avenue of
sphinxes, ram -headed, couchant on plinths deep cut with
hieroglyphic legends, and leading up from some grand landing-
place beside the Nile.

And now the towers that we had first seen as we sailed by
in the morning rose straight before us, magnificent in ruin,
glittering to the sun, and relieved in creamy light against blue
depths of sky. One was nearly perfect ; the other, shattered
as if by the shock of an earthquake, was still so lofty that an
Arab clambering from block to block midway of its vast height
looked no bigger than a squirrel.

On the threshold of this tremendous portal we again dis-

148 THEBES AND KARNAK.

mounted. Shapeless crude-brick mounds, marking the Hmits
of the ancient wall of circuit, reached far away on either side.
An immense perspective of pillars and pylons leading up to
a very distant obelisk opened out before us. We went in, the
great walls towering up like cliffs above our heads, and entered
the First Court, Here, in the midst of a large quadrangle
open to the sky stands a solitary column, the last of a central
avenue of twelve, some of which, disjointed by the shock, lie
just as they fell, like skeletons of vertebrate monsters left
stranded by the Flood.

Crossing this Court in the glowing sunlight, we came to a
mighty doorway between two more propylons — the doorway
splendid with coloured bas-reliefs ; the propylons mere cataracts
of fallen blocks piled up to right and left in grand confusion.
The cornice of the doorway is gone. Only a jutting fragment
of the lintel stone remains. That stone, when perfect, measured
forty feet and ten inches across. The doorway must have
been full a hundred feet in height.

We went on. Leaving to the right a mutilated colossus
engraven on arm and breast with the cartouche of Rameses II,
we crossed the shade upon the threshold, and passed into the
famous Hypostyle Hall of Seti the First.

It is a place that has been much written about and often
painted ; but of which no writing and no art can convey more
than a dwarfed and pallid impression. To describe it, in the
sense of building up a recognisable image by means of words,
is impossible. The scale is too vast ; the effect too tremendous ;
the sense of one's own dumbness, and littleness, and incapacity,
too complete and crushing. It is a place that strikes you into
silence ; that empties you, as it were, not only of words but of
ideas. Nor is this a first effect only. Later in the year, when
we came back down the river and moored close by, and spent
long days among the ruins, I found I never had a word to say
in the Great Hall. Others might measure the girth of those
tremendous columns ; others might climb hither and thither,
and find out points of view, and test the accuracy of Wilkinson
and Mariette ; but I could only look, and be silent.

Yet to look is something, if one can but succeed in remem-
bering ; and the Great Hall of Karnak is photographed in

THEBES AND KARNAK.

149

some dark corner of my brain for as long as I have memory.
I shut my eyes, and see it as if I were there — not all at once,
as in a picture ; but bit by bit, as the eye takes note of large
objects and travels over an extended field of vision. I stand
once more among those mighty columns, which radiate into

HYPOSTYLE HALL, KARNAK.

avenues from whatever point one takes them. I see them
swathed in coiled shadows and broad bands of light. I see
them sculptured and painted with shapes of Gods and Kings,
with blazonings of royal names, with sacrificial altars, and forms
of sacred beasts, and emblems of wisdom and truth. The
shafts of these columns are enormous. I stand at the foot of

I50 THEBES AND KARNAK.

one — or of what seems to be the foot ; for the original pave-
ment Hes buried seven feet below. Six men standing with
extended arms, finger-tip to finger-tip, could barely span it
round. It casts a shadow twelve feet in breadth — such a
shadow as might be cast by a tower. The capital that juts
out so high above my head looks as if it might have been
placed there to support the heavens. It is carved in the
semblance of a full-blown lotus, and glows with undying colours
— colours that are still fresh, though laid on by hands that have
been dust these three thousand years and more. It would take
not six men, but a dozen to measure round the curved lip of
that stupendous lily.

Such are the twelve central columns. The rest (one
hundred and twenty-two in number) are gigantic too ; but
smaller. Of the roof they once supported, only the beams
remain. Those beams are stones — huge monoliths^ carved
and painted, bridging the space from pillar to pillar, and
patterning the trodden soil with bands of shadow.

Looking up and down the central avenue, we see at the
one end a flame-like obelisk ; at the other, a solitary palm
against a background of glowing mountain. To right, to left,
showing transversely through long files of columns, we catch
glimpses of colossal bas-reliefs lining the roofless walls in every
direction. The King, as usual, figures in every group, and
performs the customary acts of worship. The Gods receive
and approve him. Half in light, half in shadow, these slender,
fantastic forms stand out sharp, and clear, and colourless ;
each figure some eighteen or twenty feet in height. They
could scarcely have looked more weird when the great roof

1 The size of these stones not being given in any of our books, I paced
the length of one of the shadows, and (allowing for so much more at each
end as would be needed to reach to the centres of the two capitals on
which it rested) found the block above must measure at least 25 feet in
length. The measurements of the Great Hall are, in plain figures, 170
feet in length by 329 in breadth. It contains 134 columns, of which the
central twelve stand 62 feet high in the shaft (or about 70 with the plinth
and abacus), and measure 34 feet 6 inches in circumference. The smaller
columns stand 42 feet 5 inches in the shaft, and measure 28 feet in cir-
cumference. All are buried to a depth of between six or seven feet in the
alluvial deposits of between three and four thousand annual inundations.

THEBES AND KARNAK. 151

was in its place and perpetual twilight reigned. But it is
difficult to imagine the roof on, and the sky shut out. It all
looks right as it is ; and one feels, somehow, that such columns
should have nothing between them and the infinite blue depths
of heaven.

The great central avenue was, however, sufficiently lighted
by means of a double row of clerestory windows, some of
which are yet standing. Certain writers have suggested that
they may have been glazed ; but this seems improbable for
two reasons. Firstly, because one or two of these huge
window-frames yet contain the solid stone gratings which in
the present instance seem to have done duty for a translucent
material : and, secondly, because we have no evidence to show
that the early Egyptians, though familiar since the days of
Cheops with the use of the blow-pipe, ever made glass in
sheets, or introduced it in this way into their buildings.

How often has it been written, and how often must it be
repeated, that the Great Hall at Karnak is the noblest archi-
tectural work ever designed and executed by human hands ?
One writer tells us that it covers four times the area occupied
by the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. Another measures
it against St. Peter's. All admit their inability to describe it ;
yet all attempt the description. To convey a concrete image
of the place to one who has not seen it, is, however, as I have
already said, impossible. If it could be likened to this place
or that, the task would not be so difficult ; but there is, in
truth, no building in the wide world to compare with it. The
Pyramids are more stupendous. The Colosseum covers more
ground. The Parthenon is more beautiful. Yet in nobility of
conception, in vastness of detail, in majesty of the highest
order, the Hall of Pillars exceeds them every one. This
doorway, these columns, are the wonder of the world. How
was that lintel-stone raised ? How were these capitals lifted ?
Entering among those mighty pillars, says a recent observer,
" you feel that you have shrunk to the dimensions and feebleness
of a fly." But I think you feel more than that. You are
stupefied by the thought of the mighty men who made them.
You say to yourself : — " There were indeed giants in those days."

It may be that the traveller who finds himself for the first

152 THEBES AND KARNAK.

time in the midst of a grove of Wellingtonia gigantea feels
something of the same overwhelming sense of awe and wonder ;
but the great trees, though they have taken three thousand
years to grow, lack the pathos and the mystery that comes of
human labour. They do not strike their roots through six
thousand years of history. They have not been watered with
the blood and tears of millions.^ Their leaves know no sounds
less musical than the singing of birds, or the moaning of the
night-wind as it sweeps over the highlands of Calaveros. But
every breath that wanders down the painted aisles of Karnak
seems to echo back the sighs of those who perished in the
quarry, at the oar, and under the chariot -wheels of the
conqueror.

The Hypostyle Hall, though built by Seti, the father
of Rameses II, is supposed by some Egyptologists to have
been planned, if not begun, by that same Amenhotep III who
founded the Temple of Luxor and set up the famous Colossi
of the Plain. However this may be, the cartouches so lavishly
sculptured on pillar and architrave contain no names but those
of Seti, who undoubtedly executed the work en bloc, and of
Rameses, who completed it.

And now, would it not be strange if we knew the name
and history of the architect who superintended the building of
this wondrous Hall, and planned the huge doorway by which
it was entered, and the mighty pylons which lie shattered on
either side ? Would it not be interesting to look upon his
portrait, and see what manner of man he was ? Well, the
Egyptian room in the Glyptothek Museum at Munich contains
a statue found some seventy years ago at Thebes, which almost
certainly represents that man, and is inscribed with his history.
His name was Bak-en-Khonsu (servant of Khonsu). He sits
upon the ground, bearded and robed, in an attitude of medita-
tion. That he was a man of unusual ability is shown by the
inscriptions engraved upon the back of the statue. These
inscriptions record his promotion step by step to the highest
grade of the hierarchy. Having attained the dignity of High
Priest and First Prophet of Amen during the reign of Seti the

^ It has been calculated that every stone of these huge Pharaonic
temples cost at least one human life.

THEBES AND KARNAK. 155

First, he became Chief Architect of the Thebaid under Rameses
II, and received a royal commission to superintend the embel-
lishment of the Temples. When Rameses II " erected a
monument to his Divine Father Amen Ra," the building thereof
was executed under the direction of Bak-en-Khonsu. Here
the inscription, as translated by M. Deveria, goes on to say
that " he made the sacred edifice in the upper gate of the
Abode of Amen.^ He erected obelisks of granite. He made
golden flagstaffs. He added very, very great colonnades."

M. Deveria suggests that the Temple of Gournah may here
be indicated ; but to this it might be objected that Gournah is
situated in the lower and not the upper part of Thebes ; that
at Gournah there are no great colonnades and no obelisks ;.
and that, moreover, for some reason at present unknown to us,,
the erection of obelisks seems to have been almost wholly
confined to the eastern bank of the Nile. It is, however,
possible that the works here enumerated may not all have
been executed for one and the same Temple. The " sacred
edifice in the upper gate of the Abode of Amen " might be the
Temple of Luxor, which Rameses did in fact adorn with the
only obelisks we know to be his in Thebes ; the monument
erected by him to his Divine Father Amen (evidently a new
structure) would scarcely be any other than the Ramesseum ;
while the " very, very great colonnades," which are expressly
specified as additions, would seem as if they could only belong
to the Hypostyle Hall of Karnak. The question is at all
events interesting ; and it is pleasant to believe that in the
Munich statue we have not only a portrait of one who at
Karnak played the part of Michael Angelo to some foregone
and forgotten Bramante, but who was also the Ictinus of the
Ramesseum. For the Ramesseum is the Parthenon of Thebes.

The sun was sinking and the shadows were lengthening
when, having made the round of the principal ruins, we at
length mounted our donkeys and turned towards Luxor. To
describe all that we saw after leaving the Great Hall would fill

^ i.e. Per Amen, or Pa-Amenj — one of the ancient names of Thebes,^
which was the city especially dedicated to Amen. Also Apt, or Abot, or
Apetou, by some ascribed to an Indo- Germanic root signifying Abode.
Another name for Thebes, and probably the one most in use, was Uas.

154 THEBES AND KARNAK.

a chapter. Huge obelisks of shining granite — some yet erect,
some shattered and prostrate ; vast lengths of sculptured walls
■covered with wondrous battle subjects, sacerdotal processions,
and elaborate chronicles of the deeds of Kings ; ruined court-
yards surrounded by files of headless statues ; a sanctuary
built all of polished granite, and engraven like a gem ; a second
Hall of Pillars dating back to the early days of Thothmes the
Third ; labyrinths of roofless chambers ; mutilated colossi,
shattered pylons, fallen columns, unintelligible foundations and
hieroglyphic inscriptions without end, were glanced at, passed
by, and succeeded by fresh wonders. I dare not say how
many small outlying temples we saw in the course of that
rapid survey. In one place we came upon an undulating tract
of coarse halfeh grass, in the midst of which, battered, defaced,
forlorn, sat a weird company of green granite Sphinxes and
lioness -headed Basts. In another, we saw a magnificent
colossal hawk upright on his pedestal in the midst of a bergfall
of ruins. More avenues of Sphinxes, more pylons, more colossi
were passed before the road we took in returning brought us
round to that by which we had come. By the time we reached
the Sheykh's tomb, it was nearly dusk. We rode back across
the plain, silent and bewildered. Have I not said that it was
like a dream?

CHAPTER IX.

THEBES TO ASSUAN.

Hurrying close upon the serenest of Egyptian sunsets
came a night of storms. The wind got up about ten. By
midnight the river was racing in great waves, and our
dahabeeyah rolling at her moorings like a ship at sea. The
sand, driving in furious gusts from the Lybian desert, dashed
like hail against our cabin windows. Every moment we were
either bumping against the bank, or being rammed by our own
felucca. At length, a little before dawn, a huge slice of the
bank gave way, thundering like an avalanche upon our decks ;
whereupon ReYs Hassan, being alarmed for the safety of the
boat, hauled us up to a little sheltered nook a few hundred
yards higher. Taking it altogether, we had not had such a
lively night since leaving Benisouef,

The look-out next morning was dismal — the river running
high in yeasty waves ; the boats all huddled together under
the shore ; the western bank hidden in clouds of sand. To
get under way was impossible, for the wind was dead against
us ; and to go anywhere by land was equally out of the
question. Karnak in a sand-storm would have been grand to
see ; but one would have needed a diving helmet to preserve
eyes and ears from destruction.

ToM'ards afternoon, the fury of the wind so far subsided
that we were able to cross the river and ride to Medinet Habu
and the Ramesseum, As we achieved only a passing glimpse
of these wonderful ruins, I will for the present say nothing
about them. We came to know them so well hereafter that
no mere first impression would be worth record.

156 THEBES TO ASSUAN.

A light but fitful breeze helped us on next day as far as-
Erment, the Ptolemaic Hermonthis, once the site of a goodly
temple, now of an important sugar-factory. Here we moored
for the night, and after dinner received a visit of ceremony
from the Bey — a tall, slender, sharp-featured, bright-eyed man
in European dress, remarkably dignified and well-bred — who
came attended by his secretary, Kawass, and pipe -bearer.
Now the Bey of Erment is a great personage in these parts.
He is governor of the town as well as superintendent of the
sugar-factory ; holds a military command ; has his palace and
gardens close by, and his private steamer on the river ; and is.
like most high officials in Egypt, a Turk of distinction. The
secretary, who was the Bey's younger brother, wore a brown
Inverness cape over a long white petticoat, and left his slippers
at the saloon door. He sat all the time with his toes curiously
doubled under, so that his feet looked like clenched fists in
stockings. Both gentlemen wore tarbooshes, and carried visiting
canes. The visiting cane, by the way, plays a conspicuous
part in modern Egyptian life. It measures about two and a
half feet in length, is tipped at both ends with gold or silver,
and is supposed to add the last touch of elegance to the bearer.

We entertained our guests with coffee and lemonade, and,
as well as we could, with conversation. The Bey, who spoke
only Turkish and Arabic, gave a flourishing account of the
sugar- works, and despatched his pipe -bearer for a bundle of
fresh canes and some specimens of raw and candied sugars.
He said he had an English foreman and several English work-
men, and that for the English as a nation he had the highest
admiration and regard ; but that the Arabs " had no heads."
To our inquiries about the ruins, his replies were sufficiently
discouraging. Of the large Temple every vestige had long
since disappeared ; while of the smaller one only a few columns
and part of the walls were yet standing. They lay out beyond
the town and a long way from the river. There was very little
to see. It was all " sagheer " (small) ; " moosh-taib " (bad) ; not
worth the trouble of the walk. As for " anteekahs," they were
rarely found here, and when found were of slight value.

A scarab which he wore in a ring was then passed round
and admired. It fell to our Little Lady's turn to examine it

THEBES TO ASStJAN. 157

last, and restore it to the owner. But the owner, with a bow
and a deprecating gesture, would have none of it. The ring
was a toy — a nothing — the lady's — his no longer. She was
obliged to accept it, however unwillingly. To decline would
have been to offend. But it was the way in which the thing
was done that made the charm of this little incident. The
grace, the readiness, the courtesy, the lofty indifference of it,
were alike admirable. Macready in his best days could have
done it with as princely an air ; but even he would probably
have missed something of the Oriental reticence of the Bey of
Erment.

He then invited Us to go over the sugar-factory (which we
declined on account of the lateness of the hour), and presently
took his leave. About ten minutes after, came a whole posse
of presents — three large bouquets of roses for the Sittat
(ladies), two scarabei, a small funereal statuette in the rare
green porcelain, and a live turkey. We in return sent a com-
plicated English knife with all sorts of blades, and some pots
of English jam.

The wind rose next morning with the sun, and by break-
fast-time we had left Erment far behind. All that day the
good breeze served us well. The river was alive with cargo-
boats. The Philae put on her best speed. The little Bagstones
kept up gallantly. And the Fostat, a large iron dahabeeyah
full of English gentlemen, kept us close company all the after-
noon. We were all alike bound for Esneh, which is a large
trading town, and lies twenty-six miles south of Erment.

Now, at Esneh the men were to bake again. Great, there-
fore, was Refs Hassan's anxiety to get in first, secure the oven,
and buy the flour before dusk. The Reis of the Fostat and
he of the Bagstones were equally anxious, and for the same
reasons. Our men, meanwhile, were wild with excitement,
watching every manoeuvre of the other boats ; hanging on to
the shoghool like a swarm of bees ; and obeying the word of
command with unwonted alacrity. As we neared the goal,
the race grew hotter. The honour of the boats was at stake,
and the bread question was for the moment forgotten. Finally
all three dahabeeyahs ran in abreast, and moored side by side
in front of a row of little open caf(6s just outside the town.

158 THEBES TO ASSVAN.

Esneh (of which the old Egyptian civil name was Sni, and
the Roman name Latopolis) stands high upon the mounds of
the ancient city. It is a large place — as large, apparently, as
Minieh, and like Minieh, it is the capital of a province. Here
dragomans lay in provision of limes, charcoal, flour, and live
stock, for the Nubian journey ; and crews bake for the last
time before their return to Egypt. For in Nubia food is
scarce, and prices are high, and there are no public ovens.

It was about five o'clock on a market-day when we reached
Esneh, and the market was not yet over. Going up through
the usual labyrinth of windowless mud-alleys where the old
men crouched, smoking, under every bit of sunny wall, and the
children swarmed like flies, and the cry for backshish buzzed
incessantly about our ears, we came to an open space in the
upper part of the town, and found ourselves all at once in the
midst of the market. Here were peasant folk selling farm-
produce ; stall-keepers displaying combs, looking-glasses, gaudy
printed handkerchiefs and cheap bracelets of bone and coloured
glass ; camels lying at ease and snarling at every passer-by ;
patient donkeys ; ownerless dogs ; veiled women ; blue and
black robed men ; and all the common sights and sounds of
a native market. Here, too, we found Reis Hassan bargaining
for flour ; Talhamy haggling with a charcoal-dealer ; and the
M. B/s buying turkeys and geese for themselves and a huge
store of tobacco for their crew. Most welcome sight of all,
however, was a dingy chemist's shop about the size of a sentry-
box, over the door of which was suspended an Arabic inscrip-
tion ; while inside, robed all in black, sat a lean and grizzled
Arab, from whom we bought a big bottle of rose water to
make eye-lotion for L.'s ophthalmic patients.

Meanwhile there was a Temple to be seen at Esneh ; and
this Temple, as we had been told, was to be found close
against the market-place. We looked round in vain, however,
for any sign of pylon or portico. The chemist said it was
" kureiyib," which means " near by." A camel-driver pointed
to a dilapidated wooden gateway in a recess between two
neighbouring houses. A small boy volunteered to lead the
way. We were greatly puzzled. We had expected to see the
Temple towering above the surrounding houses, as at Luxor,

THEBES TO ASSCAN. 15^

and could by no means understand how any large building ta
which that gateway might give access, should not be visible
from without.

The boy, however, ran and thumped upon the gate, and
shouted " Abbas ! Abbas !" Mehemet Ali, who was doing escort,
added some thundering blows with his staff, and a little
crowd gathered, but no Abbas came.

The bystanders, as usual, were liberal with their advice ;
recommending the boy to climb over, and the sailor to knock
louder, and suggesting that Abbas the absent might possibly
be found in a certain neighbouring cafe. At length I some-
what impatiently expressed my opinion that there was " Mafeesb
Birbeh " (no Temple at all) ; whereupon a dozen voices were
raised to assure me that the Birbeh was no myth — that it was
"kebir"(big) — that it was "kwy-ees" (beautiful) — and that
all the " Ingleez " came to see it.

In the midst of the clamour, however, and just as we are
about to turn away in despair, the gate creaks open ; the
gentlemen of the Fostat troop out in puggeries and knicker-
bockers ; and we are at last admitted.

This is what we see — a little yard surrounded by mud-
walls ; at the farther end of the yard a dilapidated doorway ;
beyond the doorway, a strange-looking, stupendous mass of
yellow limestone maisonry, long, and low, and level, and
enormously massive. A few steps farther, and this proves ta
be the curved cornice of a mighty Temple — a Temple neither
ruined nor defaced, but buried to the chin in the accumulated
rubbish of a score of centuries. This part is evidently the
portico. We stand close under a row of huge capitals. The
columns that suppoit them are buried beneath our feet. The
ponderous cornice juts out above our heads. From the level
on which we stand to the top of that cornice may measure
about twentj^-five feet. A high mud-wall runs parallel to the
whole width of the fagade, leaving a passage of about twelve
feet in breadth between the two. A low mud-parapet and a
hand-rail reach from capital to capital. All beyond is vague,
cavernous, mysterious — a great shadowy gulf, in the midst of
which dim ghosts of many columns are darkly visible. Frony
an opening between two of the capitals, a flight of brick steps

i6o THEBES TO ASSUAN.

leads down into a vast hall so far below the surface of the
outer world, so gloomy, so awful, that it might be the portico
of Hades.

Going down these steps we come to the original level of
the Temple. We tread the ancient pavement. We look up
to the massive ceiling, recessed, and sculptured, and painted,
like the ceiling at Denderah. We could almost believe, indeed,
that we are again standing in the portico of Denderah. The
number of columns is the same. The arrangement of the
intercolumnar screen is the same. The general effect and the
main features of the plan are the same. In some respects,
however, Esneh is even more striking. The columns, though
less massive than those of Denderah, are more elegant, and
look loftier. Their shafts are covered with figures of gods,
and emblems, and lines of hieroglyphed inscription, all cut in
low relief. Their capitals, in place of the huge draped Hathor-
heads of Denderah, are studied from natural forms — from the
lotus -lily, the papyrus -blossom, the plumy date-palm. The
wall-sculpture, however, is inferior to that at Denderah, and
immeasurably inferior to the wall-sculpture at Karnak. The
figures are of the meanest Ptolemaic type, and all of one size.
The inscriptions, instead of being grouped wherever there
happened to be space, and so producing the richest form of
wall-decoration ever devised by man, are disposed in symmetri-
•cal columns, the effect of which, when compared with the florid
style of Karnak, is as the methodical neatness of an engrossed
•deed to the splendid freedom of an illuminated manuscript.

The steps occupy the place of the great doorway. The
jambs and part of the cornice, the intercolumnar screen, the
shafts of the columns under whose capitals we came in, are
all there, half-projecting from, and half-imbedded in the solid
mound beyond. The light, however, comes in from so high
up, and through so narrow a space, that one's eyes need to
become accustomed to the darkness before any of these details
can be distinguished. Then, by degrees, forms of deities
familiar and unfamiliar emerge from the gloom.

The Temple is dedicated to Knum or Kneph, the Soul
of the World, whom we now see for the first time. He is
lam -headed, and holds in his hand the " ankh," or emblem of

i62 THEBES TO ASS CAN.

life.^ Another new acquaintance is Bes,^ the grotesque god of
mirth and jollity

Two singular little erections, built in between the columns
to right and left of the steps, next attract our attention. They
are like stone sentry-boxes. Each is in itself complete, with
roof, sculptured cornice, doorway, and, if I remember rightly,
a small square window in the side. The inscriptions upon two
similar structures in the portico at Edfu show that the right-
hand closet contained the sacred books belonging to the
Temple, while in the closet to the left of the main entrance
the King underwent the ceremony of purification. It may
therefore be taken for granted that these at Esneh were erected
for the same purposes.

And now we look round for the next Hall — and look in
vain. The doorway which should lead to it is walled up.
The portico was excavated by Mohammed AH in 1842 ; not
in any spirit of antiquarian zeal, but in order to provide a safe
underground magazine for gunpowder. Up to that time, as
may be seen by one of the illustrations to Wilkinson's Thebes
and General View of Egypt, the interior was choked to within
a few feet of the capitals of the columns, and used as a cotton-
store. Of the rest of the building, nothing is known ; nothing

^ Knum was one of the primordial Gods of the Egyptian cosmogony ;
the divine potter ; he who fashioned man from the clay, and breathed into
him the breath of life. He is sometimes represented in the act of fashioning
the first man, or that mysterious ^^,% from which not only man but the
universe proceeded, by means of the ordinary potter's wheel. Sometimes
also he is depicted in his boat, moving upon the face of the waters at the
dawn of creation. About the time of the XXth dynasty Knum became
identified with Ra. He also was identified with Amen, and was worshipped
in the Great Oasis in the Greek period as Amen-Knum. He is likewise
known as " The Soul of the Gods," and in this character, as well as in his
Solar character, he is represented with the head of a ram, or in the form
of a ram. Another of his titles is " The Maker of Gods and Men." Knum
was also one of the Gods of the Cataract, and chief of the Triad worshipped
at Elephantine. An inscription at Philae styles him " Maker of all that is.
Creator of all beings. First existent, the Father of Fathers, the Mother of
Mothers."

2 Bes. " La culte de Bes parait etre une importation Asiatique.
Quelquefois le dieu est arme d'une ep^e qu'il brandit au-dessus de sa tete ;
dans ce role, il semble le dieu des combats. Plus souvent c'est le dieu de
la danse, de la musique, des plaisirs." — Mariette Bey.

THEBES TO ASS&AN. 163

is visible. It is as large, probably, as Denderah or Edffi,
and in as perfect preservation. So, at least, says local tradi-
tion ; but not even local tradition can point out to what extent
it underlies the foundations of the modern houses that swarm
above its roof. An inscription first observed by Champollion
states that the sanctuary was built by Thothmes III. Is that
antique sanctuary still there ? Has the Temple grown step
by step under the hands of successive Kings, as at Luxor ?
Or has it been re-edified ab ovo, as at Denderah ? These are
" puzzling questions," only to be resolved by the demolition of
a quarter of the town. Meanwhile, what treasures of sculptured
history, what pictured chambers, what buried bronzes and
statues may here await the pick of the excavator !

All next day, while the men were baking, the Writer sat
in a corner of the outer passage, and sketched the portico of
the Temple. The sun rose upon the one horizon and set
upon the other before that drawing was finished ; yet for
scarcely more than one hour did it light up the front of the
Temple. At about half-past nine A.M. it first caught the stone
fillet at the angle. Then, one by one, each massy capital
became outlined with a thin streak of gold. As this streak
widened, the cornice took fire, and presently the whole stood
out in light against the sky. Slowly then, but quite perceptibly,
the sun travelled across the narrow space overhead ; the
shadows became vertical ; the light changed sides ; and by ten
o'clock there was shade for the remainder of the day. Towards
noon, however, the sun being then at its highest and the air
transfused with light, the inner columns, swallowed up till now
in darkness, became illumined with a wonderful reflected light,
and glowed from out the gloom like pillars of fire.

Never to go on shore without an escort is one of the rules
of Nile life, and Salame has by this time become my exclusive
property. He is a native of Asstian, young, active, intelligent,
full of fun, hot-tempered withal, and as thorough a gentleman
as I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. For a sample of
his good breeding, take this day at Esneh — a day which he
might have idled away in the bazaars and cafes, and which it
must have been dull work to spend cooped up between a mud-
wall and an outlandish Birbeh, built by the Djinns who reigned

i64 THEBES TO ASSOAN.

before Adam. Yet Salame betrays no discontent. Curled up
in a shady corner, he watches me Hke a dog ; is ready with an
umbrella as soon as the sun comes round ; and replenishes a
water-bottle or holds a colour-box as deftly as though he had
been to the manner born. At one o'clock arrives my luncheon,
enshrined in a pagoda of plates. Being too busy to leave off
work, however, I put the pagoda aside, and despatch Salame
to the market, to buy himself some dinner ; for which purpose,
wishing to do the thing handsomely, I present him with the
magnificent sum of two silver piastres, or about fivepence
English. With this he contrives to purchase three or four
cakes of flabby native bread, a black-looking rissole of chopped
meat and vegetables, and about a pint of dried dates.

Knowing this to be a better dinner than my friend gets
every day, knowing also that our sailors habitually eat at noon,
I am surprised to see him leave these dainties untasted. In
vain I say " Bismillah " (in the name of God) ; pressing him to
eat in vocabulary phrases eked out with expressive pantomijne.
He laughs, shakes his head, and, asking permission to smoke a
cigarette, protests he is not hungry. Thus three more hours
go by. Accustomed to long fasting and absorbed in my
sketch, I forget all about the pagoda ; and it is past four
o'clock when I at length set to work to repair tissue at the
briefest possible cost of time and daylight. And now the
faithful Salame falls to with an energy that causes the cakes,
the rissole, the dates, to vanish as if by magic. Of what
remains from my luncheon he also disposes in a trice. Never,
unless in a pantomime, have I seen mortal man display so
prodigious an appetite.

I made Talhamy scold him, by and by, for this piece of
voluntary starvation.

"By my Prophet!" said he, "am la pig or a dog, that I
should eat when the Sitt was fasting?"

It was at Esneh, by the way, that that hitherto undiscovered
curiosity, an ancient Egyptian coin, was offered to me for sale.
The finder was digging for nitre, and turned it up at an
immense depth below the mounds on the outskirts of the town.
He volunteered to show the precise spot, and told his artless
tale with childlike simplicity. Unfortunately, however, for the

THEBES TO ASSCAN. 165

authenticity of this remarkable relic, it bore, together with the
familiar profile of George IV, a superscription of its modest
value, which was precisely one farthing. On another occasion,
when we were making our long stay at Luxor, a coloured glass
button of honest Birmingham make was brought to the boat
by a fellah who swore that he had himself found it upon a
mummy in the Tombs of the Queens at Kftrnet Murraee.
The same man came to my tent one day when I was sketching,
bringing with him a string of more than doubtful scarabs — all
veritable " anteekahs," of course, and all backed up with undeni-
able pedigrees.

"La, la (no, no), — bring me no more anteekahs," I said,
gravely. " They are old and worn out, and cost much money.
Have you no imitation scarabs, new and serviceable, that one
might wear without the fear of breaking them ?"

"These are imitations, O Sitt !" was the ready answer.

" But you told me a moment ago they were genuine an-
teekahs."

"That was because I thought the Sitt wanted to buy
anteekahs," he said, quite shamelessly.

" See now," I said, " if you are capable of selling me new
things for old, how can I be sure that you would not sell me
old things for new ?"

To this he replied by declaring that he had made the
scarabs himself Then, fearing I should not believe him, he
pulled a scrap of coarse paper from his bosom, borrowed one
of my pencils, and drew an agp, an ibis, and some other
common hieroglyphic forms, with tolerable dexterity.

"Now you believe?" he asked, triumphantly.

" I see that you can make birds and snakes," I replied ;
" but that neither proves that you can cut scarabs, nor that
these scarabs are new."

" Nay, Sitt," he protested, " I made them with these hands. I
made them but the other day. By Allah ! they cannot be newer."

Here Talhamy interposed.

" In that case," he said, " they are too new, and will crack
before a month is over. The Sitt would do better to buy
some that are well seasoned."

Our honest Fellah touched his brow and breast.

1 66 THEBES TO ASS 0 AN.

"Now in strict truth, O Dragoman !" he said, with an air
of the most engaging candour, " these scarabs were made at
the time of the inundation. They are new ; but not too new.
They are thoroughly seasoned. If they crack, you shall
denounce me to the governor, and I will eat stick for them !"

Now it has always seemed to me that the most curious
feature in this little scene was the extraordinary simplicity of
the Arab. With all his cunning, with all his disposition to
cheat, he suffered himself to be turned inside-out as unsuspici-
ously as a baby. It never occurred to him that his untruthful-
ness was being put to the test, or that he was committing
himself more and more deeply with every word he uttered.
The fact is, however, that the Fellah is half a savage. Not-
withstanding his mendacity — (and it must be owned that he
is the most brilliant liar under heaven) — he remains a
singularly transparent piece of humanity, easily amused, easily
deceived, easily angered, easily pacified. He steals a little,
cheats a little, lies a great deal ; but on the other hand he
is patient, hospitable, affectionate, trustful. He suspects no
malice, and bears none. He commits no great crimes. He
is incapable of revenge. In short, his good points outnumber
his bad ones ; and what man or nation need hope for a much
better character ?

To generalise in this way may seem like presumption on
the part of a passing stranger ; yet it is more excusable as
regards Egypt than it would be of any other equally accessible
country. In Europe, and indeed in most parts of the East,
one sees too little of the people to be able to form an opinion
about them ; but it is not so on the Nile. Cut off from
hotels, from railways, from European ised cities, you are brought
into continual intercourse with natives. The sick who come
to you for medicines, the country gentlemen and government
officials who visit you on board your boat and entertain you
on shore, your guides, your donkey-boys, the very dealers who
live by cheating you, furnish endless studies of character, and
teach you more of Egyptian life than all the books of Nile-
travel that ever were written.

Then your crew, part Arab, part Nubian, are a little world
in themselves. One man was born a slave, and will carry the

THEBES TO ASSUAN. 167

dealer's brand-marks to his grave. Another has two children
in Miss Whateley's school at Cairo. A third is just married,
and has left his young wife sick at home. She may be dead
by the time he gets back, and he will hear no news of her
meanwhile. So with them all. Each has his simple story —
a story in which the local oppressor, the dreaded conscription,
and the still more dreaded corveCy form the leading incidents.
The poor fellows are ready enough to pour out their hopes,
their wrongs, their sorrows. Through sympathy with these, one
comes to know the men ; and through the men, the nation.
For the life of the Beled repeats itself with but little variation
wherever the Nile flows and the Khedive rules. The characters
are the same ; the incidents are the same. It is only the mise
en scene which varies.

And thus it comes to pass that the mere traveller who
spends but half-a-year on the Nile may, if he takes an interest
in Egypt and the Egyptians, learn more of both in that short
time than would be possible in a country less singularly
narrowed in all ways — politically, socially, geographically.

And this reminds me that the traveller on the Nile really
sees the whole land of Egypt. Going from point to point in
other countries, one follows a thin line of road, railway, or
river, leaving wide tracts unexplored on either side ; but there
are few places in Middle or Upper Egypt, and none at all in
Nubia, where one may not, from any moderate height, survey
the entire face of the country from desert to desert. It is
well to do this frequently. It helps one, as nothing else can
help one, to an understanding of the wonderful mountain
waste through which the Nile has been scooping its way for
uncounted cycles. And it enables one to realise what a mere
slip of alluvial deposit is this famous land which is " the gift of
the river."

A dull grey morning, a faint and fitful breeze, carried us
slowly on our way from Esneh to Edfu. The new bread — a
heavy boat-load when brought on board — lay in a huge heap at
the end of the upper deck. It took four men one whole day
to cut it up. Their incessant gabble drove us nearly distracted.

"Uskut, Khaleefeh! Uskut, Alii" (Silence, Khaleefeh !
Silence, AH I) Talhamy would say from time to time. " You

1 68 THEBES TO ASSUAN.

are not on your own deck. The Howadji can neither read
nor write for the clatter of your tongues."

And then, for about a minute and a half, they would be
quiet.

But you could as easily keep a monkey from chattering as
an Arab. Our men talked incessantly ; and their talk was
always about money. Listen to them when we might, such
words as " Khamsa gurush " (five piastres), " nfis riyal "
(half-a-dollar), " ethneen shilling " (two shillings), were perpetu-
ally coming to the surface. We never could understand how
it was that money, which played so small a part in their lives,
should play so large a part in their conversation.

It was about midday when we passed El Kab, the ancient
Eileithyias. A rocky valley narrowing inland ; a Sheykh's
tomb on the mountain -ridge above; a few clumps of date-
palms ; some remains of what looked like a long crude-brick
wall running at right angles to the river ; and an isolated mass
of hollowed limestone rock left standing apparently in the
midst of an exhausted quarry, were all we saw of El Kab as
the dahabeeyah glided by.

And now, as the languid afternoon wears on, the propylons
of Edfii loom out of the misty distance. We have been
looking for them long enough before they come into sight —
calculating every mile of the way ; every minute of the day-
light. The breeze, such as it was, has dropped now. The
river stretches away before us, smooth and oily as a pond.
Nine of the men are tracking. Will they pull us to Edfu in
time to see the Temple before nightfall ?

Reis Hassan looks doubtful ; but takes refuge as usual
in " Inshallah ! " (God willing). Talhamy talks of landing a
sailor to run forward and order donkeys. Meanwhile the Phila;
creeps lazily on ; the sun declines unseen behind a filmy veil ;
and those two shadowy towers, rising higher and ever higher
on the horizon, look grey, and ghostly, and far distant still.

Suddenly the trackers stop, look back, shout to those on
board, and begin drawing the boat to shore. Reis Hassan
points joyously to a white streak breaking across the smooth
surface of the river about half-a-mile behind. The Fostat's
sailors are already swarming aloft— the Bagstones' trackers are

THEBES TO ASSOAN. 169

making for home — our own men are preparing to fling in the
rope and jump on board as the Philae nears the bank.

For the capricious wind, that always springs up when we
don't want it, is coming !

And now the Fostat, being hindmost, flings out her big
sail and catches the first puff"; the Bagstones' turn comes next ;
the Philae shakes her wings free, and shoots ahead ; and in
fewer minutes than it takes to tell, we are all three scudding
along before a glorious breeze.

The great towers that showed so far away half- an -hour
ago are now close at hand. There are palm-woods about their
feet, and clustered huts, from the midst of which they tower
up against the murky sky magnificently. Soon they are passed
and left behind, and the grey twilight takes them, and we see
them no more. Then night comes on, cold and starless ; yet
not too dark for going as fast as wind and canvas will carry us.

And now, with that irrepressible instinct of rivalry that
flesh — especially flesh on the Nile — is heir to, we quickly turn
our good going into a trial of speed. It is no longer a mere
business-like devotion to the matter in hand. It is a contest
for glory. It is the Philae against the Fostat, and the Bagstones
against both. In plain English, it is a race. The two leading
dahabeeyahs are pretty equally matched. The Philae is larger
than the Fostat ; but the Fostat has a bigger mainsail. On
the other hand, the Fostat is an iron boat ; whereas the Philae,
being wooden-built, is easier to pole off a sandbank, and lighter
in hand. The Bagstones carries a capital mainsail, and can
go as fast as either upon occasion. Meanwhile, the race is one
of perpetually varying fortunes. Now the Fostat shoots ahead ;
now the Philae. We pass and re-pass ; take the wind out of
one another's sails ; economise every curve ; hoist every stitch
of canvas ; and, having identified ourselves with our boats, are
as eager to win as if a great prize depended on it. Under
these circumstances, to dine is difficult — to go to bed super-
fluous— to sleep impossible. As to mooring for the night, it
is not to be thought of for a moment. Having begun the
contest, we can no more help going than the wind can help
blowing ; and our crew are as keen about winning as ourselves.

As night advances, the wind continues to rise, and our

I70 THEBES TO ASSOAN.

excitement with it. Still the boats chase each other along the
dark river, scattering spray from their bows and flinging out
broad foam -tracks behind them. Their cabin -windows, all
alight within, cast flickering flames upon the waves below. The
coloured lanterns at their mast-heads, orange, purple, and
crimson, burn through the dusk like jewels. Presently the
mist blows off; the sky clears ; the stars come out ; the wind
howls ; the casements rattle ; the tiller scroops ; the sailors
shout, and race, and bang the ropes about overhead ; while we,
sitting up in our narrow berths, spend half the night watching
from our respective windows.

In this way some hours go by. Then, about three in the
morning, with a shock, a recoil, a yell, and a scuffle, we all
three rush headlong upon a sandbank ! The men fly to the
rigging, and furl the flapping sail. Some seize punting poles.
Others, looking like full-grown imps of darkness, leap overboard
and set their shoulders to the work. A strophe and antistrophe
of grunts are kept up between those on deck and those in the
water. Finally, after some ten minutes' frantic struggle, the
Philae slips off, leaving the other two aground in the middle of
the river.

Towards morning, the noisy night having worn itself away,
we all fall asleep — only to be roused again by Talhamy's voice
at seven, proclaiming aloud that the Bagstones and Fostat are
once more close upon our heels ; that Silsilis and Kom Ombo
are passed and left behind ; that we have already put forty-six
miles between ourselves and Edfu ; and that the good wind
is still blowing.

We are now within fifteen miles of Assuan. The Nile is
narrow here, and the character of the scenery has quite changed.
Our view is bounded on the Arabian side by a near range of
black granitic mountains ; while on the Libyan side lies a
chain of lofty sand-hills, each curiously capped by a crown of
dark boulders. On both banks the river is thickly fringed
with palms.

Meanwhile the race goes on. Last night it was sport ;
to-day it is earnest. Last night we raced for glory ; to-day
we race for a stake.

"A guinee for Reis Hassan, if we get first to Assuan!"

THEBES TO ASSOAN. 171

ReYs Hassan's eyes glisten. No need to call up the
dragoman to interpret between us. The look, the tone, are as
intelligible to him as the choicest Arabic ; and the magical
word ' guinee ' stands for a sovereign now, as it stood for one
pound one in the days of Nelson and Abercrombie. He
touches his head and breast ; casts a backward glance at the
pursuing dahabeeyahs, a forward glance in the direction of
Assfian ; kicks off his shoes ; ties a handkerchief about his
waist ; and stations himself at the top of the steps leading to
the upper deck. By the light in his eye and the set look about
his mouth, Reis Hassan means winning.

Now to be first in Assuan means to be first on the
governor's list, and first up the Cataract. And as the passage
of the Cataract is some two or three days' work, this little
question of priority is by no means unimportant. Not for
five times the promised ' guinee ' would we have the Fostat
slip in first, and so be kept waiting our turn on the wrong side
of the frontier.

And now, as the sun rises higher, so the race waxes hotter
At breakfast time, we were fifteen miles from Assuan. Now
the fifteen miles have gone down to ten ; and when we reach
yonder headland, they will have dwindled to seven. It is
plain to see, however, that as the distance decreases between
ourselves and Assfian, so also it decreases between ourselves
and the Fostat. Reis Hassan knows it. I see him measuring
the space by his eye. I see the frown settling on his brow.
He is calculating how much the Fostat gains in every quarter
of an hour, and how many quarters we are yet distant from
the goal. For no Arab sailor counts by miles. He counts
by time, and by the reaches in the river ; and these may be
taken at a rough average of three miles each. When, therefore,
our captain, in reply to an oft-repeated question, says we have
yet two bends to make, we know that we are about six miles
from our destination.

Six miles — and the Fostat creeping closer every minute !
Just now we were all talking eagerly ; but as the end draws
near, even the sailors are silent. Reis Hassan stands motion-
less at his post, on the look-out for shallows. The words
" Shamal — Yemin " (left — right), delivered in a short, sharp

172 THEBES TO ASSCAN.

tone, are the only sounds he utters. The steersman, all eye
and ear, obeys him like his hand. The sailors squat in their
places, quiet and alert as cats.

And now it is no longer six miles but five — no longer five,
but four. The Fostat, thanks to her bigger sail, has well-nigh
overtaken us ; and the Bagstones is not more than a hundred
yards behind the Fostat. On we go, however, past palm-woods
of nobler growth than any we have yet seen ; past forlorn
homeward-bound dahabeeyahs lying-to against the wind ; past
native boats, and river-side huts, and clouds of driving sand ;'
till the corner is turned, and the last reach gained, and the
minarets of Assuan are seen as through a shifting fog in the
distance. The ruined tower crowning yonder promontory
stands over against the town ; and those black specks midway
in the bed of the river are the first outlying rocks of the
Cataract. The channel there is hemmed in between reefs and
sandbanks, and to steer it is difficult in even the calmest
weather. Still our canvas strains to the wind, and the Philae
rushes on full-tilt, like a racer at the hurdles.

Every eye now is turned upon Reis Hassan ; and Refs
Hassan stands rigid, like a man of stone. The rocks are close
ahead — so close that we can see the breakers pouring over
them, and the swirling eddies between. Our way lies through
an opening between the boulders. Beyond that opening, the
channel turns off sharply to the left. It is a point at which
everything will depend on the shifting of a sail. If done too
soon, we miss the mark ; if too late, we strike upon the rocks.

Suddenly our Captain flings up his hand, takes the stairs
at a bound, and flies to the prow. The sailors spring to their
feet, gathering some round the shoghool, and some round the
end of the yard. The Fostat is up beside us. The moment
for winning or losing is come.

And now, for a couple of breathless seconds, the two
dahabeeyahs plunge onward side by side, making for that
narrow passage which is only wide enough for one. Then the
iron boat, shaving the sandbank to get a wider berth, shifts
her sail first, and shifts it clumsily, breaking or letting go her
shoghool. We see the sail flap, and the rope fly, and all
hands rushing to retrieve it

THEBES TO ASSOAN.

173

In that moment Reis Hassan gives the word. The Phila:
bounds forward — takes the channel from under the very bows
of the Fostat — changes her sail without a hitch — and dips
right away down the deep water, leaving her rival hard and
fast among the shallows.

The rest of the way is short and open. In less than five
minutes we have taken in our sail, paid Reis Hassan his well-
earned guinee, and found a .'^nusr corner to moor in. And so
ends our memorable race of nearly sixty -eight miles from
Edfu to Assuan.

NATIVK BOAT, ASSOaN.

CHAPTER X.
assOan and elephantine.

1 HE green island of Elephantine, which is about a mile
in length, lies opposite Assuan and divides the Nile in two
channels. The Libyan and Arabian deserts — smooth amber
sand-slopes on the one hand ; rugged granite cliffs on the
other — come down to the brink on either side. On the Libyan
shore a Sheykh's tomb, on the Arabian shore a bold fragment
of Moorish architecture with ruined arches open to the sky,
crown two opposing heights, and keep watch over the gate
of the Cataract. Just under the Moorish ruin, and separated
from the river by a slip of sandy beach, lies Assuan.

A few scattered houses, a line of blank wall, the top of a
minaret, the dark mouths of one or two gloomy alleys, are all
that one sees of the town from the mooring-place below. The
black boulders close against the shore, some of which are
superbly hieroglyphed, glisten in the sun like polished jet.^
The beach is crowded with bales of goods ; with camels laden
and unladen ; with turbaned figures coming and going ; with
damaged cargo-boats lying up high and dry, and half heeled
over, in the sun. Others, moored close together, are taking
in or discharging cargo. A little apart from these lie some

^ " At the Cataracts of the great rivers Orinoco, Nile, and Congo, the
syenitic rocks are coated by a black substance, appearing as if they had
been polished with plumbago. The layer is of extreme thinness ; and on
analysis by Berzelius it was found to consist of the oxides of manganese
and iron. . . . The origin, however, of these coatings of metallic oxides,
which seem as if cemented to the rocks, is not understood ; and no reason,
I believe, can be assigned for their thickness remaining the same." —
Journal of Researches, by Charles Darwin, chap. i. p. 12, ed. 1845.

ASSOAN and elephantine. 175

three or four dahabeeyahs flying English, American, and Belgian
flags. Another has cast anchor over the way at Elephantine.
Small row-boats cross and recross, meanwhile, from shore to
shore ; dogs bark ; camels snort and snarl ; donkeys bray ;
and clamorous curiosity -dealers scream, chatter, hold their
goods at arm's length, battle and implore to come on board,
and are only kept off the landing plank by means of two big
sticks in the hands of two stalwart sailors.

The things offered for sale at Assuan are altogether new
and strange. Here are no scarabaei, no funerary statuettes, no
bronze or porcelain gods, no relics of a past civilisation ; but,
on the contrary, such objects as speak only of a rude and
barbarous present — ostrich eggs and feathers, silver trinkets of
rough Nubian workmanship, spears, bows, arrows, bucklers of
rhinoceros-hide, ivory bracelets cut solid from the tusk, porcu-
pine quills, baskets of stained and plaited reeds, gold nose-rings,
and the like. One old woman has a Nubian lady's dressing-
case for sale — an uncouth, Fetish-like object with a cushion for
its body, and a top-knot of black feathers. The cushion con-
tains two Kohl-bottles, a bodkin, and a bone comb.

But the noisiest dealer of the lot is an impish boy blessed
with the blackest skin and the shrillest voice ever brought
together in one human being. His simple costume consists of
a tattered shirt and a white cotton skull-cap ; his stock-in-trade,
of a greasy leather fringe tied to the end of a stick. Flying
from window to window of the saloon on the side next the
shore, scrambling up the bows of a neighbouring cargo-boat so
as to attack us in the rear, thrusting his stick and fringe in
our faces whichever way we turn, and pursuing us with eager
crres of "Madame Nubia! Madame Nubia!" he skips, and
screams, and grins like an ubiquitous goblin, and throws every
competitor into the shade.

Having seen a similar fringe in the collection of a friend
at home, I at once recognised in " Madame Nubia " one of
those curious girdles which, with the addition of a necklace
and a few bracelets, form the entire wardrobe of little girls
south of the Cataract. They vary in size according to the age
of the wearer ; the largest being about twelve inches in depth
and twenty-five in length. A few are ornamented with beads

176 ASSUAN AND ELEPHANTINE.

and small shells ; but these are parures de luxe. The ordinary
article is cheaply and unpretentiously trimmed with castor-oil.
That is to say, the girdle when new is well soaked in the oil,
which softens and darkens the leather, besides adding a perfume
dear to native nostrils.

For to the Nubian, who grows his own plants and bruises
his own berries, this odour is delicious. He reckons castor-oil
among his greatest luxuries. He eats it as we eat butter. His
wives saturate their plaited locks in it. His little girls perfume
their fringes with it. His boys anoint their bodies with it.
His home, his breath, his garments, his food, are redolent of
it. It pervades the very air in which he lives and has his
being. Happy the European traveller who, while his lines are
cast in Nubia, can train his degenerate nose to delight in the
aroma of castor-oil I

The march of civilisation is driving these fringes out of
fashion on the frontier. At Assuan, they are chiefly in
demand among English and American visitors. Most people
purchase a " Madame Nubia " for the entertainment of friends
at home. L., who is given to vanities in the way of dress,
bought one so steeped in fragrance that it scented the Philae
for the rest of the voyage, and retains its odour to this day.

Almost before the mooring-rope was made fast, our Painter,
arrayed in a gorgeous keffiyeh ^ and armed with the indispensable
visiting-cane, had sprung ashore and hastened to call upon the
Governor. A couple of hours later the Governor (having
promised to send at once for the Sheykh of the Cataract and
to forward our going by all means in his power) returned the
visit. He brought with him the Mudir^ and Kadi ^ of Assuan,
each attended by his pipe-bearer.

We received our guests with due ceremony in the saloon.
The great men placed themselves on one of the side -divans,
and the Painter opened the conversation by offering them
champagne, claret, port, sherry, curagoa, brandy, whisky, and
Angostura bitters. Talhamy interpreted.

The Governor laughed. He was a tall young man, grace-

1 Keffiyeh : A square head-shawl, made of silk or woollen, European
travellers wear them as puggarees.

'- Mudir : Chief Magistrate. » Kadi: Judge.

ASSUAN AND ELEPHANTINE. 177

ful, lively, good-looking, and black as a crow. The Kadi and
Mudir, both elderly Arabs, yellow, wrinkled, and precise, looked
shocked at the mere mention of these unholy liquors. Some-
body then proposed lemonade.

The Governor turned briskly towards the speaker.

"Gazzoso?" he said interrogatively.

To which Talhamy replied : " Aiwah (Yes), Gazzoso."

Aerated lemonade and cigars were then brought. The
Governor watched the process of uncorking with a face of
profound interest, and drank with the undisguised greediness
of a schoolboy. Even the Kadi and Mudir relaxed somewhat
of the gravity of their demeanour. To men whose habitual
drink consists of lime-water and sugar, bottled lemonade repre-
sents champagne mousseux of the choicest brand.

Then began the usual attempts at conversation ; and only
those who have tried small-talk by proxy know how hard it is
to supply topics, suppress yawns, and keep up an animated
expression of countenance, while the civilities on both sides are
being interpreted by a dragoman.

We began, of course, with the temperature ; for in Egypt,
where it never rains and the sun is always shining, the
thermometer takes the place of the weather as a useful
platitude. Knowing that Assuan enjoys the hottest reputation
of any town on the surface of the globe, we were agreeably
surprised to find it no warmer than England in September.
The Governor accounted for this by saying that he had never
known so cold a winter. We then asked the usual questions
about the crops, the height of the river, and so forth ; to all of
which he replied with the ease and bonhomie of a man of the
world. Nubia, he said, was healthy — the date-harvest had
been abundant — the corn promised well — the Soudan was
quiet and prosperous. Referring to the new postal arrange-
ments, he congratulated us on being able to receive and post
letters at the Second Cataract. He also remarked that the
telegraphic wires were now in working order as far as Khartum.
We then asked how soon he expected the railway to reach
Assuan ; to which he replied — " In two years, at latest."

At length our little stock of topics came to an end, and the
entertainment flagged. '

178 ASSUAN AND ELEPHANTINE.

" What shall I say next ? " asked the dragoman.

" Tell him we particularly wish to see the slave-market."

The smile vanished from the Governor's face. The Mudir
set dov/n a glass of fizzing lemonade, untasted. The Kadi all
but dropped his cigar. If a shell had burst in the saloon,
their consternation could scarcely have been greater.

The Governor, looking very grave, was the first to speak.

" He says there is no slave-trade in Egypt, and no slave-
market in Assuan," interpreted Talhamy.

Now we had been told in Cairo, on excellent authority,
that slaves were still bought and sold here, though less
publicly than of old ; and that of all the sights a traveller
might see in Egypt, this was the most curious and pathetic.

" No slave-market ! " we repeated incredulously.

The Governor, the Kadi, and the Mudir shook their heads,
and lifted up their voices, and said all together, like a trio of
Mandarins in a comic opera : —

"La, la, la! Mafeesh bazaar — mafeesh bazaar!" (No, no,
no ! No bazaar — no bazaar !)

We endeavoured to explain that in making this inquiry
we desired neither the gratification of an idle curiosity, nor
the furtherance of any political views. Our only object was
sketching. Understanding, therefore, that a private bazaar still
existed in Assuan ....

This was too much for the judicial susceptibilities of the
Kadi. He would not let Talhamy finish.

" There is nothing of the kind," he interrupted, puckering
his face into an expression of such virtuous horror as might
become a reformed New Zealander on the subject of canni-
balism. " It is unlawful — unlawful."

An awkward silence followed. We felt we had committed
an enormous blunder, and were disconcerted accordingly.

The Governor saw, and with the best grace in the world
took pity upon, our embarrassment. He rose, opened the
piano, and asked for some music ; whereupon the Little Lady
played the liveliest thing she could remember, which happened
to be a waltz by Verdi.

The Governor, meanwhile, sat beside the piano, smiling and
attentive. With all his politeness, however, he seemed to be

ASSUAN AND ELEPHANTINE. tjg

looking for something — to be not altogether satisfied. There
was even a shade of disappointment in the tone of his " Ketther-
khayrik ketir," when the waltz finally exploded in a shower of
arpeggios. What could it be ? Was it that he wished for a
song ? Or would a pathetic air have pleased him better ?

Not a bit of it. He was looking for what his quick eye
presently detected — namely some printed music, which he
seized triumphantly and placed before the player. What he
wanted was " music played from a book."

Being asked whether he preferred a lively or a plaintive
melody, he replied that " he did not care, so long as it was
■difficult."

Now it chanced that he had pitched upon a volume of
Wagner ; so the Little Lady took him at his word, and gave
him a dose of " Tannhaiiser." Strange to say, he was delighted.
He showed his teeth ; he rolled his eyes ; he uttered the long-
drawn " Ah ! " which in Egypt signifies applause. The more
crabbed, the more far-fetched, the more unintelligible the
movement, the better, apparently, he liked it.

I never think of Assuan but I remember that curious scene
— our Little Lady at the piano ; the black Governor grinning
in ecstasies close by ; the Kadi in his magnificent shawl-
turban ; the Mudir half asleep ; the air thick with tobacco-
smoke ; and above all — dominant, tyrannous, overpowering —
the crash and clang, the involved harmonies, and the multi-
tudinous combinations of Tannhaiiser.

The linked sweetness of an Oriental visit is generally
drawn out to a length that sorely tries the patience and polite-
ness of European hosts. A native gentleman, if he has any
business to attend to, gets through his work before noon, and
has nothing to do but smoke, chat, and doze away the remainder
■of the day. For time, which hangs heavily on his hands, he
has absolutely no value. His main object in life is to consume
it, if possible, less tediously. He pays a visit, therefore, with
the deliberate intention of staying as long as possible. Our
guests on the present occasion remained the best part of two
hours ; and the Governor, who talked of going to England
shortly, asked for all our names and addresses, that he might
come and see us at home.

i8o ASStJAN AND ELEPHANTINE.

Leaving the cabin, he paused to look at our roses, which
stood near the door. We told him they had been given to us
by the Bey of Erment.

"Do they grow at Erment?" he asked, examining them
with great curiosity. " How beautiful ! Why will they not
grow in Nubia ?"

We suggested that the climate was probably too hot for
them.

He stooped, inhaling their perfume. He looked puzzled.

" They are very sweet," he said. " Are they roses ?"

The question gave us a kind of shock. We could hardly
believe we had reached a land where roses were unknown.
Yet the Governor, who had smoked a rose-water narghile, and
drunk rose-sherbet, and eaten conserve of roses all his days,
recognised them by their perfume only. He had never been
out of Assuan in his life ; not even as far as Erment. And
he had never seen a rose in bloom.

We had hoped to begin the passage of the Cataract on the
morning of the day following our arrival at the frontier ; but
some other dahabeeyah, it seemed, was in the act of fighting
its way up to Philae ; and till that boat was through, neither
the Sheykh nor his men would be ready for us. At eight
o'clock in the morning of the next day but one, however, they
promised to take us in hand. We were to pay £\2 English
for the double journey ; that is to say, £<^ down, and the
remaining £}, on our return to Assuan.

Such was the treaty concluded between ourselves and the
Sheykh of the Cataract at a solemn conclave over which the
Governor, assisted by the Kadi and Mudir, presided.

Having a clear day to spend at Assuan, we of course gave
part thereof to Elephantine, which in the inscriptions is called
Abu, or the Ivory Island. There may perhaps have been a
depot, or " treasure -city," here for the precious things of the
Upper Nile country ; the gold of Nubia and the elephant-tusks
of Kush.

It is a very beautiful island — rugged and lofty to the
south ; low and fertile to the north ; with an exquisitely varied
coast-line full of wooded creeks and miniature beaches, in
which one might expect at any moment to meet Robinson

ASSCAA' AND ELEPHANTINE.

Crusoe with his goat-skin umbrella, or man Friday bending
under a load of faggots. They are all Fridays here, however ;
for Elephantine, being the first Nubian outpost, is peopled by
Nubians only. It contains two Nubian villages, and the
mounds of a very ancient city which was the capital of all
Egypt under the Pharaohs of the Vlth Dynasty, between three
and four thousand years before Christ. Two temples, one of
which dated from the reign of Amenhotep III, were yet
standing here some seventy years ago. They were seen by
Belzoni in 1815, and had just been destroyed to build a palace
and barracks when Champollion went up in 1829. A ruined
gateway of the Ptolemaic period and a forlorn -looking sitting
statue of Menephtah, the supposed Pharaoh of the Exodus,
alone remain to identify the sites on which they stood.

Thick palm-groves and carefully-tilled patches of castor-oil
and cotton plants, lentils, and durra, make green the heart of
the island. The western shore is wooded to the water's edge.
One may walk here in the shade at hottest noon, listening to
the murmur of the Cataract and seeking for wild flowers
— which, however, would seem to blossom nowhere save in
the sweet Arabic name of Geziret-el-Zahr, the Island of
Flowers.

Upon the high ground at the southern extremity of the
island, among rubbish heaps, and bleached bones, and human
skulls, and the sloughed skins of snakes, and piles of parti-
coloured potsherds, we picked up several bits of inscribed terra-
cotta— evidently fragments of broken vases. The writing was
very faint, and in part obliterated. We could see that the
characters were Greek ; but not even our Idle Man was equal
to making out a word of the sense. Believing them to be
mere disconnected scraps to which it would be impossible to
find the corresponding pieces — taking it for granted, also, that
they were of comparatively modern date — we brought away
some three or four as souvenirs of the place, and thought no
more about them.

We little dreamed that Dr. Birch, in his cheerless official
room at the British Museum so many thousand miles away,
was at this very time occupied in deciphering a collection of
similar fragments, nearly all of which had been brought from

i82 ASSUAN AND ELEPHANTINE.

this same spot.^ Of the curious interest attaching to these
illegible scrawls, of the importance they were shortly to acquire
in the eyes of the learned, of the possible value of any chance
additions to their number we knew, and could know, nothing.
Six months later, we lamented our ignorance and our lost
opportunities.

For the Egyptians, it seems, used potsherds instead of
papyrus for short memoranda ; and each of these fragments
which we had picked up contained a record complete in itself
I fear we should have laughed if any one had suggested that
they might be tax-gatherer's receipts. Yet that is just what
they were — receipts for government dues collected on the
frontier during the period of Roman rule in Egypt. They
were written in Greek, because the Romans deputed Greek

1 The results of Dr. Birch's labours were given to the public in his
'• Guide to the First and Second Eg^'ptian Rooms," published by order of
the Trustees of the British Museum in May 1874. Of the contents of
case 99 in the Second Room, he says : " The use of potsherds for docu-
ments received a great extension at the time of the Roman Empire, when
receipts for the taxes were given on these fragments by the collectors of
revenue at Elephantine or Syene, on the frontier of Egypt. These receipts
commenced in the reign of Vespasian, a.d. 77, and are found as late as
M. Aurelius and L. Verus, a.d. 165. It appears from them that the
capitation and trades tax, which was 16 drachms in A.D. 77, rose to 20 in
A.D. 165, having steadily increased. The dues were paid in instalments
called merisjnoi, at three periods of the year. The taxes were farmed out
to publicans, mtsfhotai, who appear from their names to have been Greeks.
At Elephantine the taxes were received by tax-gatherers, prakteres, who
seem to have been appointed as early as the Ptolemies. Their clerks were
Egyptians, and they had a chest and treasure, /^j/a.r." See p. 109, as
above; also Birch's History of Ancient Pottery, chap. i. p. 45.

These barren memoranda are not the only literary curiosities found at
Elephantine. Among the Egyptian MSB. of the Louvre may be seen
some fragments of the XVIIIth Book of the Iliad, discovered in a tomb
upon the island. How they came to be buried there no one knows. A
lover of poetry would like to think, however, that some Greek or Roman
officer, dying at his post upon this distant station, desired, perhaps, to
have his Homer laid with him in his grave.

Note to Second Edition.— Other fragments of the Iliad have been
found from time to time in various parts of Egypt ; some (now in the
Louvre) being scrawled, like the above-mentioned tax -receipts, on mere
potsherds. The finest specimen ever found in Egypt or elsewhere, and
the earliest, has however been discovered this year, 1888, by Mr. Flinders
Petrie in the grave of a woman at Hawara, in the Fayum.

ASS&AN AND ELEPHANTINE. 183

scribes to perform the duties of this unpopular office ; but the
Greek is so corrupt and the penmanship so clownish that
only a ievj eminent scholars can read them.

Not all the inscribed fragments found at Elephantine, how-
ever, are tax -receipts, or written in bad Greek. The British
Museum contains several in the demotic, or current script of
the people, and a few in the more learned hieratic or priestly
hand. The former have not yet been translated. They are
probably business memoranda and short private letters of
Egyptians of the same period.

But how came these fragile documents to be preserved,
when the city in which their writers lived, and the temples in
which they worshipped, have disappeared and left scarce a
trace behind ? Who cast them down among the potsherds
on this barren hillside ? Are we to suppose that some kind
of Public Record - Office once occupied the site, and that
the receipts here stored were duplicates of those given to
the payers ? Or is it not even more probable that this place
was the Monte Testaccio of the ancient city, to which all
broken pottery, written as well as unwritten, found its way
sooner or later?

With the exception of a fine fragment of Roman quay
nearly opposite Assuan, the ruined gateway of Alexander and
the battered statue of Menephtah are the only objects of
archaeological interest in the island. But the charm of Ele-
phantine is the everlasting charm of natural beauty — of rocks,
of palm-woods, of quiet waters.

The streets of Assuan are just like the streets of every
other mud town on the Nile. The bazaars reproduce the
bazaars of Minieh and Siut. The environs are noisy with
cafes and dancing girls, like the environs of Esneh and Luxor.
Into the mosque, where some kind of service was going on,
we peeped without entering. It looked cool, and clean, and
spacious ; the floor being covered with fine matting, and some
scores of ostrich-eggs depending from the ceiling. In the
bazaars we bought baskets and mats of Nubian manufacture,
woven with the same reeds, dyed with the same colours, shaped
after the same models, as those found in the tombs at Thebes.
A certain oval basket with a vaulted cover, of which specimens

1 84 ASSUAN AND ELEPHANTINE.

are preserved in the British Museum, seems still to be the
pattern most in demand at Assfian. The basket-makers have
neither changed their fashion nor the buyers their taste since
the days of Rameses the Great.

Here also, at a little cupboard of a shop near the Shoe
Bazaar, we were tempted to spend a few pounds in ostrich
feathers, which are conveyed to Assfian by traders from the
Soudan. The merchant brought out a feather at a time, and
seemed in no haste to sell. We also affected indifference.
The haggling on both sides was tremendous. The bystanders,
as usual, were profoundly interested, and commented on every
word that passed. At last we carried away an armful of
splendid plumes, most of which measured from two and a half
to three feet in length. Some were pure white, others white
tipped with brown. They had been neither cleaned nor curled,
but were just as they came from the hands of the ostrich-
hunters.

By far the most amusing sight in Assuan was the traders'
camp down near the landing-place. Here were Abyssinians
like slender -legged baboons ; wild -looking Bishariyah and
Ababdeh Arabs with flashing eyes and flowing hair ; sturdy
Nubians the colour of a Barbedienne bronze ; and natives
of all tribes and shades, from Kordofan and Sennar, the
deserts of Bahuda and the banks of the Blue and White
Niles. Some were returning from Cairo ; others were on their
way thither. Some, having disembarked their merchandise at
Mahatta (a village on the other side of the Cataract), had come
across the desert to re-embark it at Assuan. Others had just
disembarked theirs at Assuan, in order to re-embark it at
Mahatta. Meanwhile, they were living sub Jove ; each en-
trenched in his own little redoubt of piled-up bales and packing-
cases, like a spider in the centre of his web ; each provided
with his kettle and coffee-pot, and an old rug to sleep and
pray upon. One sulky old Turk had fixed up a roof of matting,
and furnished his den with a Kafas, or palm-wood couch ; but
he was a self-indulgent exception to the rule.

Some smiled, some scowled, when we passed through the
camp. One offered us coffee. Another, more obliging than
the rest, displayed the contents of his packages. Great bundles

ASSUAN AND ELEPHANTINE. 185

of Hon and leopard skins, bales of cotton, sacks of henna-leaves,
elephant-tusks swathed in canvas and matting, strewed the
sandy bank. Of gum-arabic alone there must have been
several hundred bales ; each bale sewn up in a raw hide and
tied with thongs of hippopotamus leather. Towards dusk, when
the camp-fires were alight and the evening meal was in course
of preparation, the scene became wonderfully picturesque.
Lights gleamed ; shadows deepened ; strange figures stalked
to and fro, or squatted in groups amid their merchandise.
Some were baking flat cakes ; others stirring soup, or roasting
coffee. A hole scooped in the sand, a couple of stones to
support the kettle, and a handful of dry sticks, served for
kitchen-range and fuel. Meanwhile all the dogs in Assuan
prowled round the camp, and a jargon of barbaric tongues
came and went with the breeze that followed the sunset.

I must not forget to add that among this motley crowd we
saw two brothers, natives of Khartum. We met them first
in the town, and afterwards in the camp. They wore volumin-
ous white turbans, and flowing robes of some kind of creamy
cashmere cloth. Their small proud heads and delicate
aristocratic features were modelled on the purest Florentine
type ; their eyes were long and liquid ; their complexions,
free from any taint of Abyssinian blue or Nubian bronze, were
intensely, lustrously, magnificently black. We agreed that we
had never seen two such handsome men. They were like
young and beautiful Dantes carved in ebony ; Dantes unem-
bittered by the world, unsicklied by the pale cast of thought,
and glowing with the life of the warm South.

Having explored Elephantine and ransacked the bazaars,
our party dispersed in various directions. Some gave the
remainder of the day to letter-writing. The Painter, bent on
sketching, started off in search of a jackal-haunted ruin up a
wild ravine on the Libyan side of the river. The Writer and
the Idle Man boldly mounted camels and rode out into the
Arabian desert.

Now the camel-riding that is done at Assuan is of the
most commonplace description, and bears to genuine desert
travelling about the same relation that half-an-hour on the
Mer de Glace bears to the passage of the Mortaretsch glacier

i86 ASSUAN AND ELEPHANTINE.

or the ascent of Monte Rosa. The short cut from Assuan
to Philae, or at least the ride to the granite quarries, forms part
of every dragoman's programme, and figures as the crowning
achievement of every Cook's tourist. The Arabs themselves
perform these Httle journeys much more pleasantly and expedi-
tiously on donkeys. They take good care, in fact, never to
scale the summit of a camel if they can help it. But for the
impressionable traveller, the Assuan camel is de rigueur. In
his interests are those snarling quadrupeds be-tasselled and be-
rugged, taken from their regular work, and paraded up and
down the landing-place. To transport cargoes disembarked
above and below the Cataract is their vocation. Taken from
this honest calling to perform in an absurd little drama got up
especially for the entertainment of tourists, it is no wonder if
the beasts are more than commonly ill-tempered. They know
the whole proceeding to be essentially cockney, and they resent
it accordingly.

The ride, nevertheless, has its advantages ; not the least
being that it enables one to realise the kind of work involved
in any of the regular desert expeditions. At all events, it
entitles one to claim acquaintance with the ship of the desert,
and (bearing in mind the probable inferiority of the specimen)
to form an ex pede judgment of his qualifications.

The camel has his virtues — so much at least must be
admitted ; but they do not lie upon the surface. My Buffon
tells me, for instance, that he carries a fresh-water cistern in
his stomach ; which is meritorious. But the cistern ameliorates
neither his gait nor his temper — which are abominable. Irre-
proachable as a beast of burden, he is open to many objections
as a steed. It is unpleasant, in the first place, to ride an
animal which not only objects to being ridden, but cherishes
a strong personal antipathy to his rider. Such, however, is
his amiable peculiarity. You know that he hates you, from
the moment you first walk round him, wondering where and
how to begin the ascent of his hump. He does not, in fact,
hesitate to tell you so in the roundest terms. He swears
freely while you are taking your seat ; snarls if you but move
in the saddle ; and stares you angrily in the face, if you
attempt to turn his head in any direction save that which he

ASS (JAN AND ELEPHANTINE. 187

himself prefers. Should you persevere, he tries to bite your
feet. If biting your feet does not answer, he lies down.

Now the lying -down and getting -up of a camel are
performances designed for the express purpose of inflicting
grievous bodily harm upon his rider. Thrown twice forward
and twice backward, punched in his " wind " and damaged in
his spine, the luckless novice receives four distinct shocks,,
each more violent and unexpected than the last. For this
" execrable hunchback " is fearfully and wonderfully made.
He has a superfluous joint somewhere in his legs, and uses it
to revenge himself upon mankind.

His paces, however, are more complicated than his joints
and more trying than his temper. He has four : — a short
walk, like the rolling of a small boat in a chopping sea ; a
long walk which dislocates every bone in your body ; a trot
that reduces you to imbecility ; and a gallop that is sudden
death. One tries in vain to imagine a crime for which the
peine forte et dure of sixteen hours on camel-back would not be
a full and sufficient expiation. It is a punishment to which
one would not willingly be the means of condemning any
human being — not even a reviewer.

They had been down on the bank for hire all day long —
brown camels and white camels, shaggy camels and smooth
camels ; all with gay worsted tassels on their heads, and rugs
flung over their high wooden saddles, by way of housings.
The gentlemen of the Fostat had ridden away hours ago,
cross-legged and serene ; and we had witnessed their demeanour
with mingled admiration and envy. Now, modestly conscious
of our own daring, we prepared to do likewise. It was a
solemn moment when, having chosen our beasts, we prepared
to encounter the unknown perils of the desert. What wonder
if the Happy Couple exchanged an affecting farewell at
parting ?

We mounted and rode away ; two imps of darkness follow-
ing at the heels of our camels, and Salame performing the part
of bodyguard. Thus attended, we found ourselves pitched,^
swung, and rolled along at a pace that carried us rapidly up
the slope, past a suburb full of cafes and grinning dancing
girls, and out into the desert. Our way for the first half-mile

ASSUAN AND ELEPHANTINE.

or so lay among tombs. A great Mohammedan necropolis,
part ancient, part modern, lies behind Assuan, and covers more
ground than the town itself. Some scores of tiny mosques,
each topped by its little cupola, and all more or less dilapidated,
stand here amid a wilderness of scattered tombstones. Some
are isolated ; some grouped picturesquely together. Each
covers, or is supposed to cover, the grave of a Moslem Santon ;
but some are mere commemorative chapels dedicated to saints
and martyrs elsewhere buried. Of simple head-stones defaced,
shattered, overturned, propped back to back on cairns of loose
stones, or piled in broken and dishonoured heaps, there must
be many hundreds. They are for the most part rounded at
the top like ancient Egyptian stelae, and bear elaborately-
carved inscriptions, some of which are in the Cufic character,
and more than a thousand years old. Seen when the sun is
bending westward and the shadows are lengthening, there is
something curiously melancholy and picturesque about this
City of the Dead in the dead desert.

Leaving the tombs, we now strike off towards the left,
bound for the obelisk in the quarry, which is the stock sight
of the place. The horizon beyond Assuan is bounded on all
sides by rocky heights, bold and picturesque in form, yet
scarcely lofty enough to deserve the name of mountains. The
sandy bottom under our camel's feet is strewn with small
pebbles, and tolerably firm. Clustered rocks of black and red
granite profusely inscribed with hieroglyphed records crop up
here and there, and serve as landmarks just where landmarks
are needed. For nothing would be easier than to miss one's
way among these tawny slopes, and to go wandering off, like
lost Israelites, into the desert.

Winding in and out among undulating hillocks and tracts
of rolled boulders, we come at last to a little group of cliflfs,
at the foot of which our camels halt unbidden. Here we
dismount, climb a short slope, and find the huge monolith at
our feet.

Being cut horizontally, it lies half buried in drifted sand,
with nothing to show that it is not wholly disengaged and
ready for transport. Our books tell us, however, that the
under-cutting has never been done, and that it is yet one with

ASSUAN AND ELEPHANTINE.

the granite bottom on which it seems to lie. Both ends are
hidden ; but one can pace some sixty feet of its yet visible
surface. That surface bears the tool-marks of the workmen.
A slanting groove pitted with wedge-holes indicates where it
was intended to taper towards the top. Another shows where
it was to be reduced at the side. Had it been finished, this
would have been the largest obelisk in the world. The great
obelisk of Queen Hatshepsu at Karnak, which, as its inscriptions
record, came also from Assuan, stands ninety-two feet high, and
measures eight feet square at the base ;^ but this which lies
sleeping in the desert would have stood ninety-five feet in the
shaft, and have measured over eleven feet square at the base.
We can never know now why it was left here, nor guess with
what royal name it should have been inscribed. Had the king
said in his heart that he would set up a mightier obelisk than
was ever yet seen by eyes of men, and did he die before the
block could be extracted from the quarry ? Or were the
quarrymen driven from the desert, and the Pharaoh from his
throne, by the hungry hordes of Ethiopia, or Syria, or the
islands beyond the sea ? The great stone may be older than
Rameses the Great, or as modern as the last of the Romans ;
but to give it a date, or to divine its history, is impossible.
Egyptology, which has solved the enigma of the Sphinx, is
powerless here. The obelisk of the quarry holds its secret
safe, and holds it for ever.

Ancient Egyptian quarrying is seen under its most striking
aspect among extensive limestone or sandstone ranges, as at
Turra and Silsilis ; but the process by which the stone was
extracted can nowhere be more distinctly traced than at
Assuan. In some respects, indeed, the quarries here, though
on a smaller scale than those lower down the river, are even
more interesting. Nothing surprises one at Silsilis, for instance,
more than the economy with which the sandstone has been cut
from the heart of the mountain ; but at Assuan, as the material

1 These are the measurements given in Murray's Handbook. The
new EngHsh translation of Mariette's Itineraire de la Haute Egypte
gives the obeHsk of Hatshepsu io8 feet lo inches in height. See
The Monu?>ients of Upper Egypt, translated by Alphonse Mariette :
London, 1877.

ego ASSUAN AND ELEPHANTINE.

was more precious, so does the economy seem to have been
still greater. At Silsilis, the yellow cliffs have been sliced as
neatly as the cheeses in a cheesemonger's window. Smooth,
upright walls alone mark the place where the work has been
done ; and the amount of debris is altogether insignificant.
But at Assuan, when extracting granite for sculptural purposes,
they attacked the form of the object required, and cut it out
roughly to shape. The great obelisk is but one of many cases
in point. In the same group of rocks, or one very closely
adjoining, we saw a rough-hewn column, erect and three-parts
detached, as well as the semi-cylindrical hollow from which
its fellow had been taken. One curious recess from which
a quadrant - shaped mass had been cut away puzzled us
immensely. In other places the blocks appeared to have been
coffer -shaped. We sought in vain, however, for the broken
sarcophagus mentioned in Murray.

But the drifted sands, we may be sure, hide more precious
things than these. Inscriptions are probably as abundant here
as in the breccia of Hamamat. The great obelisk must have
had a fellow, if we only knew where to look for it. The
obelisks of Queen Hatshepsu, and the sarcophagi of many
famous kings, might possibly be traced to their beds in these
quarries. So might the casing stones of the Pyramid of
Menkara, the massive slabs of the Temple of the Sphinx, and
the walls of the sanctuary of Philip Aridaeus at Karnak.
Above all, the syenite Colossus of the Ramesseum and the
monster Colossus of Tanis,^ which was the largest detached
statue in the world, must each have left its mighty matrix
among the rocks close by. But these, like the song of the
sirens or the alias of Achilles, though " not beyond all conjec-
ture," are among the things that will never now be discovered.

As regards the process of quarrying at Assuan, it seems
that rectangular granite blocks were split off here, as the
softer limestone and sandstone elsewhere, by means of wooden
wedges. These were fitted to holes already cut for their

1 For an account of the discovery of this enormous statue and the
measurements of its various parts, see Tunis., Part I, by W. M. Flinders
Petrie, chap. ii. pp. 7.Z et seq. published by the Egypt Exploration Fund,
1885. [Note to Second Edition.]

ASSUAiX AND ELEPHANTINE. 191

reception ; and, being saturated with water, split the hard rock
by mere force of expansion. Every quarried mass hereabouts
is marked with rows of these wedge-holes.

Passing by the way a tiny oasis where there were camels,
and a well, and an idle water-wheel, and a patch of emerald-
green barley, we next rode back nearly to the outskirts of
Assuan, where, in a dismal hollow on the verge of the desert,
may be seen a small, half- buried temple of Ptolemaic times.
Traces of colour are still visible on the winged globe under the
cornice, and on some mutilated bas-reliefs at either side of the
principal entrance. Seeing that the interior was choked with
rubbish, we made no attempt to go inside ; but rode away again
without dismounting.

And now, there being still an hour of daylight, we signified
our intention of making for the top of the nearest hill, in order
to see the sun set. This, clearly, was an unheard-of innovation.
The camel-boys stared, shook their heads, protested there was
" mafeesh sikkeh " (no road), and evidently regarded us as
lunatics. The camels planted their splay feet obstinately in
the sand, tried to turn back, and, when obliged to yield to the
force of circumstances, abused us all the way. Arrived at the
top, we found ourselves looking down upon the island of
iLJephantine, with the Nile, the town, and the dahabeeyahs at
our feet. A prolongation of the ridge on which we were
standing led, however, to another height crowned by a ruined
tomb ; and seemed to promise a view of the Cataract. Seeing
us prepare to go on, the camel -boys broke into a furore of
remonstrance, which, but for Salame's big stick, would have
ended in downright mutiny. Still we pushed forward, and,
still dissatisfied, insisted on attacking a third summit. The
boys now trudged on in sullen despair. The sun was sinking ;
the way was steep and difficult ; the night would soon come
on. If the Howadji chose to break their necks, it concerned
nobody but themselves ; but if the camels broke theirs, who
was to pay for them ?

Such — expressed half in broken Arabic, half in gestures —
were the sentiments of our youthful Nubians. Nor were the
camels themselves less emphatic. They grinned ; they sniffed ;
they snorted ; they snarled ; they disputed every foot of the

192 ASSC/AN AND ELEPHANTINE.

way. As for mine (a gawky, supercilious beast with a blood-
shot eye and a battered Roman nose), I never heard any dumb
animal make use of so much bad language in my life.

The last hill was very steep and stony ; but the view from
the top was magnificent. We had now gained the highest
point of the ridge which divides the valley of the Nile from
the Arabian desert. The Cataract, widening away reach after
reach and studded with innumerable rocky islets, looked mce
like a lake than a river. Of the Libyan desert we could see
nothing beyond the opposite sand-slopes, gold-rimmed against
the sunset. The Arabian desert, a boundless waste edged by
a serrated line of purple peaks, extended eastward to the
remotest horizon. We looked down upon it as on a raised
map. The Moslem tombs, some five hundred feet below,
showed like toys. To the right, in a wide valley opening away
southwards, we recognised that ancient bed of the Nile which
serves for the great highway between Egypt and Nubia. At
the end of the vista, some very distant palms against a rocky
background pointed the way to Philae.

Meanwhile the sun was fast sinking — -the lights were crim-
soning— the shadows were lengthening. All was silent ; all
was solitary. We listened, but could scarcely hear the murmur
of the rapids. We looked in vain for the quarry of the obelisk.
It was but one group of rocks among scores of others, and to
distinguish it at this distance was impossible.

Presently, a group of three or four black figures, mounted
on little grey asses, came winding in and out among the tombs,
and took the road to Philae. To us they were moving specks ;
but our lynx-eyed camel-boys at once recognised the " Sheykh
el Shellal " (Sheykh of the Cataract) and his retinue. More
dahabeeyahs had come in ; and the worthy man, having spent
the day in Assuan visiting, palavering, bargaining, was now
going home to Mahatta for the night. We watched the retreat-
ing riders for some minutes, till twilight stole up the ancient
channel like a flood, and drowned them in warm shadows.

The afterglow had faded off the heights when we at length
crossed the last ridge, descended the last hill-side, and regained
the level from which we had started. Here once more we met
the Fostat party. They had ridden to Philae and back by the

ASS [/AN AND ELEPHANTINE.

193

desert, and were apparently all the worse for wear. Seeing us,
they urged their camels to a trot, and tried to look as if they
liked it. The Idle Man and the Writer wreathed their counte-
nances in ghastly smiles, and did likewise. Not for worlds
would they have admitted that they found the pace difficult.
Such is the moral influence of the camel. He acts as a tonic ;
he promotes the Spartan virtues ; and if not himself heroic, is
at least the cause of heroism in others.

It was nearly dark when we reached Assuan. The cafes
were all alight and astir. There were smoking and coffee-
drinking going on outside ; there were sounds of music and
laughter within. A large private house on the opposite side
of the road was being decorated, as if for some festive occasion.
Flags were flying from the roof, and two men were busy putting
up a gaily-painted inscription over the doorway. Asking, as
was natural, if there was a marriage or a fantasia afoot, it was
not a little startling to be told that these were signs of mourning,
and that the master of the house had died during the interval
that elapsed between our riding out and riding back again.

In Egypt, where the worship of ancestry and the preserva-
tion of the body were once among the most sacred duties of the
living, they now make short work with their dead. He was
to be buried, they said, to-morrow morning, three hours after
sunrise.

CAM EI. AT ASS I AN

CHAPTER XI.

THE CATARACT AND THE DESERT.

At Assfian, one bids good-bye to Egypt and enters Nubia
through the gates of the Cataract — which is, in truth, no
cataract, but a succession of rapids extending over two-thirds
of the distance between Elephantine and Philae. The Nile —
diverted from its original course by some unrecorded catas-
trophe, the nature of which has given rise to much scientific
conjecture — here spreads itself over a rocky basin bounded by
sand-slopes on the one side, and by granite cliffs on the other.
Studded with numberless islets, divided into numberless chan-
nels, foaming over sunken rocks, eddying among water -worn
boulders, now shallow, now deep, now loitering, now hurrying,
here sleeping in the ribbed hollow of a tiny sand-drift, there
circling above the vortex of a hidden whirlpool, the river,
whether looked upon from the deck of the dahabeeyah or the
heights along the shore, is seen everywhere to be fighting its
way through a labyrinth, the paths of which have never yet
been mapped or sounded.

Those paths are everywhere difficult and everywhere
dangerous ; and to that labyrinth the Shellalee, or Cataract-
Arab, alone possesses the key. At the time of the inundation,
when all but the highest rocks are under water, and navigation
is as easy here as elsewhere, the Shellalee's occupation is gone.
But as the floods subside and travellers begin to reappear, his
work commences. To haul dahabeeyahs up those treacherous
rapids by sheer stress of rope and muscle ; to steer skilfully
down again through channels bristling with rocks and boiling

THE CATARACT AND THE DESERT. 195

with foam, becomes now, for some five months of the year,
his principal industry. It is hard work ; but he gets well
paid for it, and his profits are always on the increase. From
forty to fifty dahabeeyahs are annually taken up between
November and March ; and every year brings a larger influx
of travellers. Meanwhile, accidents rarely happen ; prices tend
continually upwards ; and the Cataract Arabs make a little
fortune by their singular monopoly.^

The scenery of the First Cataract is like nothing else in
the world — except the scenery of the Second. It is altogether
new, and strange, and beautiful. It is incomprehensible that
travellers should have written of it in general with so little
admiration. They seem to have been impressed by the wild-
ness of the waters, by the quaint forms of the rocks, by the
desolation and grandeur of the landscape as a whole ; but
scarcely at all by its beauty — which is paramount.

The Nile here widens to a lake. Of the islands, which it
would hardly be an exaggeration to describe as some hundreds
in number, no two are alike. Some are piled up like the rocks
at the Land's End in Cornwall, block upon block, column upon
column, tower upon tower, as if reared by the hand of man.
Some are green with grass ; some golden with slopes of drifted
sand ; some planted with rows of blossoming lupins, purple
and white. Others again are mere cairns of loose blocks,
with here and there a perilously balanced top-boulder. On
one, a singular upright monolith, like a menhir, stands con-
spicuous, as if placed there to commemorate a date, or to
point the way to Philae. Another mass rises out of the water
squared and buttressed, in the likeness of a fort. A third,
humped and shining like the wet body of some amphibious
beast, lifts what seems to be a horned head above the surface
of the rapids. All these blocks and boulders and fantastic
rocks are granite ; some red, some purple, some black. Their
forms are rounded by the friction of ages. Those nearest the

1 The increase of steamer traffic has considerably altered the conditions
of Nile travelling since this was written, and fewer dahabeeyahs are conse-
quently employed. By those who can afford it, and who really desire to
get the utmost pleasure, instruction, and inteiest from the trip, the daha-
beeyah will, however, always be preferred. [Note to Second Edition.]

196 THE CATARACT AND THE DESERT.

brink reflect the sky like mirrors of burnished steel. Royal
ovals and hieroglyphed inscriptions, fresh as of yesterday's
cutting, start out here and there from those glittering surfaces
with startling distinctness. A i&w of the larger islands are
crowned with clumps of palms ; and one, the loveliest of any,
is completely embowered in gum-trees and acacias, dom and
date palms, and feathery tamarisks, all festooned together
under a hanging canopy of yellow-blossomed creepers.

On a brilliant Sunday morning, with a favourable wind, we
entered on this fairy archipelago. Sailing steadily against the
current, we glided away from Assuan, left Elephantine behind,
and found ourselves at once in the midst of the islands. From
this moment every turn of the tiller disclosed a fresh point of
view, and we sat on deck, spectators of a moving panorama.
The diversity of subjects was endless. The combinations of
form and colour, of light and shadow, of foreground and distance,
were continually changing. A boat or a few figures alone
were wanting to complete the picturesqueness of the scene ;
but in all those channels, and among all those islands, we saw
no sign of any living creature.

Meanwhile the Sheykh of the Cataract — a flat-faced, fishy-
eyed old Nubian, with his head tied up in a dingy yellow silk
handkerchief — sat apart in solitary grandeur at the stern, smok-
ing a long chibouque. Behind him squatted some five or six
dusky strangers ; and a new steersman, black as a negro, had
charge of the helm. This new steersman was our pilot for
Nubia. From Assuan to Wady Halfeh, and back again to
Assuan, he alone was now held responsible for the safet}' of
the dahabeeyah and all on board.

At length a general stir among the crew warned us of the
near neighbourhood of the first rapid. Straight ahead, as if
ranged along the dyke of a weir, a chain of small islets barred
the way ; while the current, divided into three or four headlong
torrents, came rushing down the slope, and reunited at the
bottom in one tumultuous race.

That we should ever get the Philae up that hill of moving
water seemed at first sight impossible. Still our steersman
held on his course, making for the widest channel. Still the
Sheykh smoked imperturbably. Presently, without removing

THE CATARACT AND THE DESERT. 197

the pipe from his mouth, he delivered the one word — " Roohh ! "
(Forward !)

Instantly, evoked by his nod, the rocks swarmed with
natives. Hidden till now in all sorts of unseen corners, they
sprang out shouting, gesticulating, laden with coils of rope,
leaping into the thick of the rapids, splashing like water-dogs,
bobbing like corks, and making as much show of energy as
if they were going to haul us up Niagara. The thing was
evidently a coup de theatre, like the apparition of Clan Alpine's
warriors in the Donna del Lago — with backshish in the
background.

The scene that followed was curious enough. Two ropes
were carried from the dahabeeyah to the nearest island, and
there made fast to the rocks. Two ropes from the island were
also brought on board the dahabeeyah. A double file of men
on deck, and another double file on shore, then ranged them-
selves along the ropes ; the Sheykh gave the signal ; and, to
a wild chanting accompaniment and a movement like a
barbaric Sir Roger de Coverley dance, a system of double
hauling began, by means of which the huge boat slowly and
steadily ascended. We may have been a quarter of an hour
going up the incline ; though it seemed much longer. Mean-
while, as they warmed to their work, the men chanted louder
and pulled harder, till the boat went in at last with a rush,
and swung over into a pool of comparatively smooth water.

Having moored here for an hour's rest, we next repeated
the performance against a still stronger current a little higher
up. This time, however, a rope broke. Down went the
haulers, like a row of cards suddenly tipped over — round
swung the Philae, receiving the whole rush of the current on
her beam ! Luckily for us, the other rope held fast against
the strain. Had it also broken, we must have been wrecked
then and there ignominiously.

Our Nubian auxiliaries struck work after this. Fate, they
said, was adverse ; so they went home, leaving us moored for
the night in the pool at the top of the first rapid. The Sheykh
promised, however, that his people should begin work next
morning at dawn, and get us through before sunset. Next
morning came, however, and not a man appeared upon the

igS THE CATARACT AND THE DESERT.

scene. At about mid-day they began dropping in, a few at
a time ; hung about in a languid, lazy way for a couple of
hours or so ; moved us into a better position for attacking the
next rapid ; and then melted away mysteriously by twos and
threes among the rocks, and were no more seen.

We now felt that our time and money were being recklessly
squandered, and we resolved to bear it no longer. Our Painter
therefore undertook to remonstrate with the Sheykh, and to
convince him of the error of his ways. The Sheykh listened ;
smoked ; shook his head ; replied that in the Cataract, as
elsewhere, there were lucky and unlucky days, days when men
felt inclined to work, and days when they felt disinclined.
To-day, as it happened, they felt disinclined. Being reminded
that it was unreasonable to keep us three days going up five
miles of river, and that there was a governor at Assuan to
whom we should appeal to-morrow unless the work went on
in earnest, he smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and muttered
something about " destiny."

Now the Painter, being of a practical turn, had compiled
for himself a little vocabulary of choice Arabic maledictions,
which he carried in his note-book for reference when needed.
Having no faith in its possible usefulness, we were amused by
the industry with which he was constantly adding to this
collection. We looked upon it, in fact, as a harmless pleasantry
— ^just as we looked upon his pocket-revolver, which was never
loaded ; or his brand-new fowling-piece, which he was never
known to fire.

But the Sheykh of the Cataract had gone too far. The fatuity
of that smile would have exasperated the meekest of men ; and
our Painter vv^as not the meekest of men. So he. whipped out his
pocket-book, ran his finger down the line, and delivered an
appropriate quotation. His accent may not have been faultless ;
but there could be no mistake as to the energy of his style or
the vigour of his language. The effect of both was instantaneous.
The Sheykh sprang to his feet as if he had been shot — turned
pale with rage under his black skin — vowed the Philae might
stay where she was till doomsday, for aught that he or his
men would do to help her a foot farther — bounded into his
own ricketty sandal and rowed away, leaving us to our fate.

THE CATARACT AND THE DESERT. 199

We stood aghast. It was all over with us. We should
never see Abou Simbel now — never write our names on the
Rock of Aboosir, nor slake our thirst at the waters of the
Second Cataract. What was to be done .? Must the Sheykh
be defied, or propitiated ? Should we appeal to the Governor,
or should we immolate the Painter? The majority were for
immolating the Painter.

We went to bed that night, despairing ; but lo ! next
morning at sunrise appeared the Sheykh of the Cataract, all
smiles, all activity, with no end of ropes and a force of two
hundred men. We were his dearest friends now. The Painter
was his brother. He had called out the ban and arriere ban
of the Cataract in our service. There was nothing, in short,
that he would not do to oblige us.

The dragoman vowed that he had never seen Nubians
work as those Nubians worked that day. They fell to like
giants, tugging away from morn till dewy eve, and never
giving over till they brought us round the last corner, and up
the last rapid. The sun had set, the afterglow had faded, the
twilight was closing in, when our dahabeeyah slipped at last
into level water, and the two hundred, with a parting shout,
dispersed to their several villages.

We were never known to make light of the Painter's
repertory of select abuse after this. If that note-book of his
had been the drowned book of Prospero, or the magical
Papyrus of Thoth fished up anew from the bottom of the Nile,
we could not have regarded it with a respect more nearly
bordering upon awe.

Though there exists no boundary line to mark where
Egypt ends and Nubia begins, the nationality of the races
dwelling on either side of that invisible barrier is as sharply
defined as though an ocean divided them. Among the
Shellalee, or Cataract villagers, one comes suddenly into the
midst of a people that have apparently nothing in common
with the population of Egypt. They belong to a lower
ethnological type, and they speak a language derived from
purely African sources. Contrasting with our Arab sailors
the sulky-looking, half-naked, muscular savages who thronged
about the Philae during her passage up the Cataract, one could

THE CATARACT AND THE DESERT.

not but perceive that they are to this day as distinct and
inferior a people as when their Egyptian conquerors, massing
together in one contemptuous epithet all nations south of the
frontier, were wont to speak of them as " the vile race of Kush."
Time has done little to change them since those early days.
Some Arabic words have crept into their vocabulary. Some
modern luxuries — as tobacco, coffee, soap, and gunpowder —
have come to be included in the brief catalogue of their daily
wants. But in most other respects they are living to this day
as they lived in the time of the Pharaohs ; cultivating lentils
and durra, brewing barley beer, plaiting mats and baskets of
stained reeds, tracing rude patterns upon bowls of gourd-rind,
flinging the javelin, hurling the boomerang, fashioning bucklers
of crocodile-skin and bracelets of ivory, and supplying Egypt
with henna. The dexterity with which, sitting as if in a wager
boat, they balance themselves on a palm -log, and paddle to
and fro about the river, is really surprising. This barbaric sub-
stitute for a boat is probably more ancient than the pyramids.

Having witnessed the passage of the first {tw rapids, we
were glad to escape from the dahabeeyah, and spend our time
sketching here and there on the borders of the desert, and
among the villages and islands round about. In all Egypt
and Nubia there is no scenery richer in picturesque bits than
the scenery of the Cataract. An artist might pass a winter
there, and not exhaust the pictorial wealth of those five miles
which divide Assuan from Philae. Of tortuous creeks shut in
by rocks fantastically piled — of sand -slopes golden to the
water's edge — of placid pools low-lying in the midst of lupin-
fields and tracts of tender barley — of creeking Sakkiehs, half
hidden among palms and dropping water as they turn — of
mud dwellings, here clustered together in hollows, there
perched separately on heights among the rocks, and perpetuat-
ing to this day the form and slope of Egyptian pylons — of
rude boats drawn up in sheltered coves, or going to pieces
high and dry upon the sands — of water-washed boulders of
crimson, and black, and purple granite, on which the wild fowl
cluster at mid-day and the fisher spreads his nets to dry at sunset
— of camels, and caravans, and camps on shore — of cargo-boats
and cangias on the river— of wild figures of half-naked athletes

THE CATARACT AND THE DESERT.

— of dusky women decked with barbaric ornaments, unveiled,
swift-gliding, trailing long robes of deepest gentian blue — of
ancient crones, and little naked children like live bronzes — of
these, and a hundred other subjects, in infinite variety and
combination, there is literally no end. It is all so picturesque,
indeed, so biblical, so poetical, that one is almost in danger of
forgetting that the places are something more than beautiful
backgrounds, and that the people are not merely appropriate
figures placed there for the delight of sketchers, but are made
of living flesh and blood, and moved by hopes, and fears, and
sorrows, like our own.

Mahatta — green with sycamores and tufted palms ; nestled
in the hollow of a little bay; half-islanded in the rear by an arm
of backwater, curved and glittering like the blade of a Turkish

SOL'DAN TRADERS AT MAHATTA

scimetar — is by far the most beautifully situated village on the
Nile. It is the residence of the principal Sheykh, and, if one
may say so, is the capital of the Cataract. The houses lie
some way back from the river. The bay is thronged with
native boats of all sizes and colours. Men and camels, women
and children, donkeys, dogs, merchandise, and temporary huts
put together with poles and matting, crowd the sandy shore.
It is Assuan over again ; but on a larger scale. The shipping
is tenfold more numerous. The traders' camp is in itself a
village. The beach is half a mile in length, and a quarter of
a mile in the slope down to the river. Mahatta is, in fact.

THE CATARACT AND THE DESERT.

the twin port to Assuan. It lies, not precisely at the other
extremity of the great valley between Assuan and Philae, but
at the nearest accessible point above the Cataract. It is here
that the Soudan traders disembark their goods for re-embarka-
tion at Assuan. Such ricketty, barbaric-looking craft as these
Nubian cangias we had not yet seen on the river. They
looked as old and obsolete as the Ark. Some had curious
carved verandahs outside the cabin - entrance. Others were
tilted up at the stern like Chinese junks. Most of them had
been slavers in the palmy days of Defterdar Bey ; plying then
as now between Wady Halfeh and Mahatta ; discharging their
human cargoes at this point for re-shipment at Assuan ; and
rarely passing the Cataract, even at the time of inundation.
If their wicked old timbers could have spoken, they might
have told us many a black and bloody tale.

Going up through the village and the palm-gardens, and
turning off in a north-easterly direction towards the desert, one
presently comes out about midway of that valley to which I
have made allusion more than once already. No one, how-
ever unskilled in physical geography, could look from end to
■end of that huge furrow and not see that it was once a river-
bed. We know not for how many tens of thousands, or
hundreds of thousands, of years the Nile may have held on its
course within those original bounds. Neither can we tell when
it deserted them. It is, however, quite certain that the river
flowed that way within historic times ; that is to say, in the
days of Amenemhat III {circa B.C. 2800). So much is held to
be proven by certain inscriptions ^ which record the maximum

1 " The most important discovery which we have made here, and which
I shall only mention briefly, is a series of short rock-inscriptions, which
mark the highest rises of the Nile during a series of years under the
government of Amenemhat III and of his immediate successors. . . .
They prove that the river, above four thousand years ago, rose more than
twenty-four feet higher than now, and thereby must have produced totally
different conditions in the inundation and in the whole surface of the
ground, both above and below this spot." — Lepsius's Letters from Egypt,
■etc., Letter xxvi.

" The highest rise of the Nile in each year at Semneh was registered by
a mark indicating the year of the king's reign, cut in the granite, either on
one of the blocks forming the foundation of the fortress, or on the cliff,
and particularly on the east or right bank, as best adapted for the purpose.

THE CATARACT AND THE DESERT. 203

height of the inundation at Semneh during various years of
that king's reign. The Nile then rose in Ethiopia to a
level some 27 feet in excess of the highest point to which
it is ever known to attain at the present day. I am not
aware what relation the height of this ancient bed bears
to the levels recorded at Semneh, or to those now annually
self-registered upon the furrowed banks of Philae ; but one
sees at a glance, without aid of measurements or hydrographic
science, that if the river were to come down again next summer
in a mighty "bore," the crest of which rose 27 feet above
the highest ground now fertilised by the annual overflow, it
would at once refill its long-deserted bed, and convert Assuan
into an island.

Granted, then, that the Nile flowed through the desert in
the time of Amenemhat III, there must at some later period
have come a day when it suddenly ran dry. This catastrophe
is supposed to have taken place about the time of the expulsion
of the Hyksos {circa B.C. 1703), when a great disruption of the
rocky barrier at Silsilis is thought to have taken place ; so
draining Nubia, which till now had played the part of a vast
reservoir, and dispersing the pent-up floods over the plains of
Southern Egypt. It would, however, be a mistake to conclude
that the Nile was by this catastrophe turned aside in order to
be precipitated in the direction of the Cataract. One arm of
the river must always have taken the present lower and deeper
course ; while the other must of necessity have run low —
perhaps very nearly dry — as the inundation subsided every
spring.

Of these markings eighteen still remain, thirteen of them having been
made in the reign of Moeris (Amenemhat III) and five in the time of
his next two successors. . . . We have here presented to us the remark-
able facts that the highest of the records now legible, viz. that of the thirtieth
year of the reign of Amenemhat, according to exact measurements which
I made, is 8.17 metres (26 feet 8 inches) higher than the highest level
to which the Nile rises in years of the greatest floods ; and, further, that
the lowest mark, which is on the east bank and indicated the fifteenth
year of the same king, is still 4. 1 4 metres ( 1 3 feet 6^ inches) ; and the
single mark on the west bank indicating the ninth year, is 2.77 metres
(9 feet) above the highest level." — Lepsius's Letter to Professor Ehrenberg.
See Appendix to the above.

204 THE CATARACT AND THE DESERT.

There remains no monumental record of this event ; but
the facts speak for themselves. The great channel is there.
The old Nile-mud is there — buried for the most part in sand,
but still visible on many a rocky shelf and plateau between
Assuan and Philae. There are even places where the surface
of the mass is seen to be scooped out, as if by the sudden rush
of the departing waters. Since that time, the tides of war
and commerce have flowed in their place. Every conquering
Thothmes and Rameses bound for the land of Kush, led his
armies that way. Sabacon, at the head of his Ethiopian
hordes, took that short cut to the throne of all the Pharaohs.
The French under Desaix, pursuing the Memlooks after the
battle of the Pyramids, swept down that pass to Philae. Mean-
while the whole trade of the Soudan, however interrupted at
times by the ebb and flow of war, has also set that way. We
never crossed those five miles of desert without encountering a
train or two of baggage- camels laden either with European
goods for the far South, or with Oriental treasures for the
North.

I shall not soon forget an Abyssinian caravan which we
met one day just coming out from Mahatta. It consisted of
seventy camels laden with elephant tusks. The tusks, which
were about fourteen feet in length, were packed in half-dozens
and sewn up in buffalo hides. Each camel was slung with two
loads, one at either side of the hump. There must have been
about eight hundred and forty tusks in all. Beside each
shambling beast strode a bare -footed Nubian. Following
these, on the back of a gigantic camel, came a hunting leopard
in a wooden cage, and a wild cat in a basket. Last of all
marched a coal-black Abyssinian nearly seven feet in height,
magnificently shawled and turbaned, with a huge scimetar
dangling by his side, and in his belt a pair of enormous inlaid
seventeenth -century pistols, such as would have become the
holsters of Prince Rupert. This elaborate warrior represented
the guard of the caravan. The hunting leopard and the wild
cat were for Prince Hassan, the third son of the Viceroy. The
ivory was for exportation. Anything more picturesque than
this procession, with the dust driving before it in clouds, and
the children following it out of the village, it would be diffi-

THE CATARACT AND THE DESERT. 205

cult to conceive. One longed for Gerome to paint it on
the spot.

The rocks on either side of the ancient river-bed are pro-
fusely hieroglyphed. These inscriptions, together with others
found in the adjacent quarries, range over a period of between
three and four thousand years, beginning with the early reigns
of the Ancient Empire, and ending with the Ptolemies and
Caesars. Some are mere autographs. Others run to a consider-
able length. Many are headed with figures of gods and wor-
shippers. These, however, are for the most part mere graffiti, ill
drawn and carelessly sculptured. The records they illustrate are
chiefly votive. The passer-by adores the gods of the Cataract ;
implores their protection ; registers his name, and states
the object of his journey. The votaries are of various ranks,
periods, and nationalities ; but the formula in most instances
is pretty much the same. Now it is a citizen of Thebes per-
forming the pilgrimage to Philae ; or a general at the head of
his troops returning from a foray in Ethiopia ; or a tributary
Prince doing homage to Rameses the Great, and associating
his suzerain with the divinities of the place. Occasionally we
come upon a royal cartouche and a pompous catalogue of
titles, setting forth how the Pharaoh himself, the Golden
Hawk, the Son of Ra, the Mighty, the Invincible, the Godlike,
passed that way.

It is curious to see how royalty, so many thousand years
ago, set the fashion in names, just as it does to this day.
Nine-tenths of the ancient travellers who left their signatures
upon these rocks were called Rameses or Thothmes or User-
tasen. Others, still more ambitious, took the names of gods.
Ampere, who hunted diligently for inscriptions both here and
among the islands, found the autographs of no end of merely
mortal Amens and Hathors.^

Our three days' detention in the Cataract was followed by

1 For copies and translations of a large number of the graffiti of
Assiian, see Lepsius's Denkmaler j also, for the most recent and the
fullest collection of the rock-cut inscriptions of Assuan and its neighbour-
hood, including the . hitherto uncopied inscriptions of the Saba Rigaleh
Valley, of Elephantine, of the rocks above Silsileh, etc. etc., see Mr. W.
M. Flinders Petrie's latest volume, entitled A Season'' s Work hi Egypt,
28S7, published by Field and Tuer, 1888. [Note to Second Edition.]

2o6

THE CATARACT AND THE DESERT.

a fourth of glassy calm. There being no breath of air to fill
our sails and no footing for the trackers, we could now get
along only by dint of hard punting ; so that it was past
nrjidday before the Philae lay moored at last in the shadow of
the holy island to which she owed her name.

PHARAOHS BED, VKU.M.

CHAPTER XII.
PHIL^

Having been for so many days within easy reach of Philae,
it is not to be supposed that we were content till now with only
an occasional glimpse of its towers in the distance. On the
contrary, we had found our way thither towards the close of
almost every day's excursion. We had approached it by land
from the desert ; by water in the felucca ; from Mahatta by
way of the path between the cliffs and the river. When I add
that we moored here for a night and the best part of twa
days on our way up the river, and again for a week when we
came down, it will be seen that we had time to learn the lovely
island by heart.

The approach by water is quite the most beautiful. Seen
from the level of a small boat, the island, with its palms, its
colonnades, its pylons, seems to rise out of the river like a
mirage. Piled rocks frame it in on either side, and purple
mountains close up the distance. As the boat glides nearer
between glistening boulders, those sculptured towers rise
higher and ever higher against the sky. They show no sign
of ruin or of age. All looks solid, stately, perfect. One
forgets for the moment that anything is changed. If a sound
of antique chanting were to be borne along the quiet air — if
a procession of white-robed priests bearing aloft the veiled ark
of the God, were to come sweeping round between the palms
and the pylons — we should not think it strange.

Most travellers land at the end nearest the Cataract ; so
coming upon the principal temple from behind, and seeing it

2oS PHIL^.

in reverse order. We, however, bid our Arabs row round to
the southern end, where was once a stately landing-place with
steps down to the river. We skirt the steep banks, and pass
close under the beautiful little roofless Temple commonly-
known as Pharaoh's Bed — that Temple which has been so
often painted, so often photographed, that every stone of it,
and the platform on which it stands, and the tufted palms
that cluster round about it, have been since childhood as
familiar to our mind's eye as the Sphinx or the Pyramids.
It is larger, but not one jot less beautiful than we had expected.
And it is exactly like the photographs. Still, one is conscious
/jf perceiving a shade of difference too subtle for analysis ;
like the difference between a familiar face and the reflection of
it in a looking-glass. Anyhow, one feels that the real Pharaoh's
Bed will henceforth displace the photographs in that obscure
mental pigeon-hole where till now one has been wont to store
the well-known image ; and that even the photographs have
undergone some kind of change.

And now the corner is rounded ; and the river widens
away southwards between mountains and palm-groves ; and
the prow touches the debris of a ruined quay. The bank is
steep here. We climb ; and a wonderful scene opens before
our eyes. We are standing at the lower end of a courtyard
leading up to the propylons of the great Temple. The court-
yard is irregular in shape, and enclosed on either side by
covered coloimades. The colonnades are of unequal lengths
and set at different angles. One is simply a covered walk ;
the other opens upon a row of small chambers, like a monastic
-cloister opening upon a row of cells. The roofing-stones of
these colonnades are in part displaced, while here and there
a pillar or a capital is missing ; but the twin towers of the
propylon, standing out in sharp unbroken lines against the
sky and covered with colossal sculptures, are as perfect, or
very nearly as perfect, as in the days of the Ptolemies who
built them.

The broad %rea between the colonnades is honeycombed
with crude-brick foundations ; vestiges of a Coptic village of
early Christian time. Among these we thread our way to the
foot of the principal propylon, the entire width of which is

2IO PHILM.

I 20 feet. The towers measure 60 feet from base to parapet.
These dimensions are insignificant for Egypt ; yet the propylon,
which would look small at Luxor or Karnak, does not look
small at Philae. The key-note here is not magnitude, but
beauty. The island is small — that is to say it covers an area
about equal to the summit of the Acropolis at Athens ; and
the scale of the buildings has been determined by the size of
the island. As at Athens, the ground is occupied by one
principal Temple of moderate size, and several subordinate
Chapels. Perfect grace, exquisite proportion, most varied and
capricious grouping, here take the place of massiveness ; so
lending to Egyptian forms an irregularity of treatment that is
almost Gothic, and a lightness that is almost Greek.

And now we catch glimpses of an inner court, of a second
propylon, of a pillared portico beyond ; while, looking up to
the colossal bas-reliefs above our heads, we see the usual mystic
forms of kings and deities, crowned, enthroned, worshipping
and worshipped. These sculptures, which at first sight looked
no less perfect than the towers, prove to be as laboriously
mutilated as those of Denderah. The hawk -head of Horus
and the cow-head of Hathor have here and there escaped
destruction ; but the human-faced deities are literally " sans
eyes, sans nose, sans ears, sans everything."

We enter the inner court — an irregular quadrangle en-
closed on the east by an open colonnade, on the west by a
chapel fronted with Hathor-headed columns, and on the north
and south sides by the second and first propylons. In this
quadrangle a cloistral silence reigns. The blue sky burns
above — the shadows sleep below — a tender twilight lies about
our feet. Inside the chapel there sleeps perpetual gloom. It
was built by Ptolemy Euergetes II, and is one of that order
to which Champollion gave the name of Mammisi. It is a
most curious place, dedicated to Hathor and commemorative
of the nurture of Horus. On the blackened walls within,
dimly visible by the faint light which struggles through screen
and doorway, we see Isis, the wife and sister of Osiris, giving
birth to Horus. On the screen panels outside we trace the
story of his infancy, education, and growth. As a babe at the
breast, he is nursed in the lap of Hathor, the divine foster-

PHILjE. 2n

mother. As a young child, he stands at his mother's knee and
listens to the playing of a female harpist (we saw a bare-footed
boy the other day in Cairo thrumming upon a harp of just
the same shape, and with precisely as many strings) ; as a
youth, he sows grain in honour of Isis, and offers a jewelled
collar to Hathor. This Isis, with her long aquiline nose, thin
lips, and haughty aspect, looks like one of the complimentary
portraits so often introduced among the temple sculptures of
Egypt. It may represent one of the two Cleopatras wedded
to Ptolemy Physcon.

Two greyhounds with collars round their necks are sculp-
tured on the outer wall of another small chapel adjoining.
These also look like portraits. Perhaps they were the favourite
dogs of some high priest of Philae.

Close against the greyhounds and upon the same wall-
space, is engraven that famous copy of the inscription of the
Rosetta Stone first observed here by Lepsius in A.D. 1843.
It neither stands so high nor looks so illegible as Ampere
(with all the jealousy of a Champollionist and a Frenchman)
is at such pains to make out. One would have said that it
was in a state of more than ordinarily good preservation.

As a reproduction of the Rosetta decree, however, the
Philae version is incomplete. The Rosetta text, after setting
forth with official pomposity the victories and munificence of
the King, Ptolemy V, the Ever-living, the Avenger of Egypt,
concludes by ordaining that the record thereof shall be engraven
in hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek characters, and set up in
all temples of the first, second, and third class throughout the
Empire. Broken and battered as it is, the precious black
basalt ^ of the British Museum fulfils these conditions. The

^ Marietta, at the end of his Aper<^u de Phistoire d^Egypte, gives the
following succinct account of the Rosetta Stone, and the discovery of
Champollion : —

" Decouverte, il y a 65 ans environ, par des soldats fran^ais qui
creusaient un retranchement pres d'une redoute situee k Rosette, la pierre
qui porte ce nom a jou^ le plus grand role dans I'arch^ologie ^gyptienne.
Sur la face principale sont gravees trois inscriptions. Les deux premieres
sont en langue dgyptienne et ecrites dans les deux Ventures qui avaient
cours k cette epoque. L'une est en ecriture hieroglyphique reserv^e aux
pretres : elle ne compte plus que 14 lignes tronquees par la brisure de

212 PHIL^.

three writings are there. But at Philae, though the original
hieroglyphic and demotic texts are reproduced almost verbatim,
the priceless Greek transcript is wanting. It is provided for,
as upon the Rosetta Stone, in the preamble. Space has been
left for it at the bottom of the tablet. We even fancied we
could here and there distinguish traces of red ink where the
lines should come. But not one word of it has ever been cut
into the surface of the stone.

la pierre. L'autre est en une dcriture cursive appliqu^e principalement
aux usages du people et comprise par lui : celle-ci ofifre 32 lignes de
texte. Enfin, la troisi^me inscription de la stele est en langue grecque
et comprend 54 lignes. C'est dans cette derniere partie que reside I'interet
du monument trouve k Rosette. II resulte, en efifet, de I'interpr^tation
du texte grec de la stele que ce texte n'est qu'une version de I'original
transcrit plus haut dans les deux ^critures ^gyptiennes. La Pierre de
Rosette nous donne done, dans une langue parfaitement connue (le grec)
la traduction d'un texte congu dans une autre langue encore ignoree au
moment ou la st^e a et^ decouverte. Qui ne voit I'utilite de cette mention ?
Remonter du connu k I'inconnu n'est pas une operation en dehors des
moyens d'une critique prudente, et ddjk Ton devine que si la Pierre de
Rosette a acquis dans la science la celdbrite dont elle jouit aujourd'hui,
c'est qu'elle a foumi la vraie clef de cette myst^rieuse ecriture dont I'Egypte
a si longtemps gardd le secret. II ne faudrait pas croire cependant que le
dechififrement des hieroglyphes au moyen de la Pierre de Rosette ait ete
obtenu du premier coup et sans tatonnements. Bien au contraire, les
savants s'y essayerent sans succ^s pendant 20 ans. Enfin, Champollion
parut. Jusqu'k lui, on avait cm que chacune des lettres qui composent
I'ecriture hieroglyphique etait un synibole ; c'est k dire, que dans une seule
de ces lettres etait exprim^e une idee complete. Le m^rite de Champollion
et^ de prouver qu'au contraire I'ecriture dgyptienne contient des signes qui
expriment veritablement des sons. En d'autres termes qu'elle est Alpha-
betique. II remarqua, par exemple, que partout oil dans le texte grec de
Rosette se trouve le nom propre Ptole'me'e, on rencontre k I'endroit cor-
respondant du texte egyptien un certain nombre de signes enfermes dans
un encadrement elliptique. II en conclut : 1°, que les noms des rois
^taient dans le systeme hieroglyphique signal^s k I'attention par une sorte
d'ecusson qu'il appela cartouche: 2°, que les signes contenus dans cet
ecusson devaient etre lettre pour lettre le nom de Ptolem^e. Ddjk done
en supposant les voyelles omises, Champollion dtait en possession de cinq
lettres — P, T, L, M, S. D'un autre c6t6, Champollion savait, d'apres une
seconde inscription grecque gravee sur une obelisque de Philas, que sur cet
obellsque un cartouche hieroglyphique qu'on y voit devait etre celui de
Cldopatre. Si sa premiere lecture ^tait juste, le P, le L, et le T, de
Ptoiem^e devaient se retrouver dans le second nom propre ; mais en meme
temps ce second nom propre fournissait un K et un R nouveaux. Enfin,

PHIL^. 213

Taken by itself, there is nothing strange in this omission ;
but taken in connection with a precisely similar omission in
another inscription a few yards distant, it becomes something
more than a coincidence.

This second inscription is cut upon the face of a block of
living rock which forms part of the foundation of the eastern-
most tower of the second propylon. Having enumerated
certain grants of land made to the Temple by the Vlth and

appliqu^ k d'autres cartouches, I'alphabet encore tr^s imparfait revele k
Champollion par les noms de Cl^opatre et de Ptolem^e le mit en possession
d'k peu pr^s toutes les autres consonnes. Comme prono?iciation des signes,
Champollion n'avait done pas k hesiter, et d^s le jour ou cette constatation
eut lieu, il put certifier qu'il etait en possession de I'alphabet ^gyptien.
Mais restait la langue ; car prononcer des mots n'est rien si Ton ne sait
pas ce que ces mots veulent dire. Ici le g^nie de Champollion se donna
libre cours. II s'apergut en effet que son alphabet tire des noms propres
et applique au.x mots de la langue donnait tout simplement du Copte. Or,
le Copte k son tour est une langue qui, sans etre aussi explorde que le grec,
n'en etait pas moins depuis longtemps accessible. Cette fois le voile etait
done completement leve. La langue ^gyptienne n'est que du Copte ecrit
en hidroglyphes ; ou, pour parler plus exactement, le Copte n'est que la
langue des anciens Pharaons, ecrite, comme nous I'avons dit plus haut, en
lettres grecques. Le reste se devihe. D'indices en indices, Champollion
proceda v^ritablement du connu k I'inconnu, et bientot I'illustre fondateur
de I'dgyptologie put poser les fondements de cette belle science qui a pour
objet I'interpr^tation des hieroglyphes. Tel est la Pierre de Rosette." —
Aperqu de Phistoire d''Egypte : Mariette Bey, p. 189 et seq. : 1872.

In order to have done with this subject, it may be as well to mention
that another trilingual tablet was found by Mariette while conducting
his excavations at San (Tanis) in 1865. It dates from the ninth year of
Ptolemy Euergetes, and the text ordains the deification of Berenice, a
daughter of the king, then just dead (B.C. 254). This stone, preser\'ed in
the museum at Boulak, is kno\vn as the Stone of San, or the Decree of
Canopus. Had the Rosetta Stone never been discovered, we may fairly
conclude that the Canopic Decree would have furnished some later Cham-
pollion with the necessary key to hieroglyphic literature, and that the great
discovery would only have been deferred till the present time.

Note to Second Edition. — A third copy of the Decree of Canopus,
the text engraved in hieroglyphs only, was found at Tell Nebireh in
1885, and conveyed to the Boulak Museum. The discoverer of this tablet,
however, missed a much greater discovery, reserved, as it happened, for
Mr. W. M. F. Petrie, who came to the spot a month or two later, and found
that the mounds of Tell Nebireh entombed the remains of the famous and
long-lost Greek city of Naukratis. See Naiikratis, Part I, by W. M. F.
Petrie, published by the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1886.

214 PHIL^.

Vllth Ptolemies, it concludes, like the first, by decreeing that
this record of the royal bounty shall be engraven in the hiero-
glyphic, demotic, and Greek : that is to say, in the ancient
sacred writing of the priests, the ordinary script of the people,
and the language of the Court. But here again the sculptor
has left his work unfinished. Here again the inscription breaks
off at the end of the demotic, leaving a blank space for the
third transcript. This second omission suggests intentional
neglect ; and the motive for such neglect would not be far to
seek. The tongue of the dominant race is likely enough to
have been unpopular among the old noble and sacerdotal
families ; and it may well be that the priesthood of Philae,
secure in their distant, solitary isle, could with impunity evade
a clause which their brethren of the Delta were obliged to
obey.

It does not follow that the Greek rule was equally unpopular.
We have reason to believe quite otherwise. The conqueror
of the Persian invader was in truth the deliverer of Egypt.
Alexander restored peace to the country, and the Ptolemies
identified themselves with the interests of the people. A
dynasty which not only lightened the burdens of the poor but
respected the privileges of the rich ; which honoured the priest-
hood, endowed the Temples, and compelled the Tigris to
restore the spoils of the Nile, could scarcely fail to win the
suffrages of all classes. The priests of Philae might despise
the language of Homer while honouring the descendants of
Philip of Macedon. They could naturalise the King. They
could disguise his name in hieroglyphic spelling. They could
depict him in the traditional dress of the Pharaohs. They
could crown him with the double crown, and represent him in
the act of worshipping the gods of his adopted country. But
they could neither naturalise nor disguise his language. Spoken
or written, it was an alien thing. Carven in high places, it
stood for a badge of servitude. What could a conservative
hierarchy do but abhor, and, when possible, ignore it ?

There are other sculptures in this quadrangle which one
would like to linger over ; as, for instance, the capitals of the
eastern colonnade, no two of which are alike, and the
grotesque bas-reliefs of the frieze of the Mammisi. Of these.

FIIIL^. 213

a quasi-heraldic group, representing the sacred hawk sitting in
the centre of a fan-shaped persea tree between two supporters,
is one of the most curious ; the supporters being on the one side
a maniacal lion, and on the other a Typhonian hippopotamus,
each grasping a pair of shears.

Passing now through the doorway of the second propylon,
we find ourselves facing the portico — the famous painted
portico of which we had seen so many sketches that we
fancied we knew it already. That second-hand knowledge
goes for nothing, however, in presence of the reality ; and we
are as much taken by surprise as if we were the first travellers
to set foot within these enchanted precincts.

For here is a place in which time seems to have stood as
still as in that immortal palace where everything went to sleep
for a hundred years. The bas-reliefs on the walls, the intricate
paintings on the ceilings, the colours upon the capitals, are
incredibly fresh and perfect. These exquisite capitals have
long been the wonder and delight of travellers in Egypt.
They are all studied from natural forms — from the lotus in
bud and blossom, the papyrus, and the palm. Conventionalised
with consummate skill, they are at the same time so justly
proportioned to the height and girth of the columns as to give
an air of wonderful lightness to the whole structure. But
above all, it is with the colour — colour conceived in the tender
and pathetic minor of Watteau and Lancret and Greuze — that
one is most fascinated. Of those delicate half- tones, the
facsimile in the " Grammar of Ornament " conveys not the
remotest idea. Every tint is softened, intermixed, degraded.
The pinks are coralline ; the greens are tempered with
verditer ; the blues are of a greenish turquoise, like the western
half of an autumnal evening sky.

Later on, when we returned to Philae from the Second
Cataract, the Writer devoted the best part of three days to
making a careful study of a corner of this portico ; patiently
matching those subtle variations of tint, and endeavouring to
master the secret of their combination.^

^ The famous capitals are not the only specimens of admirable colour-
ing in Philas. Among the battered bas-reliefs of the great colonnade at
the south end of the island, there yet remain some isolated patches of

2i6 PHIL^.

The annexed woodcut can do no more than reproduce the
forms.

Architecturally, this court is unlike any we have yet seen,
being quite small, and open to the sky in the centre, like the
atrium of a Roman house. The light thus admitted glows
overhead, lies in a square patch on the ground below, and is
reflected upon the pictured recesses of the ceiling. At the
upper end, where the pillars stand two deep, there was origin-
ally an intercolumnar screen. The rough sides of the columns
show where the connecting blocks have been torn away. The
pavement, too, has been pulled up by treasure-seekers, and the
ground is strewn with broken slabs and fragments of shattered
cornice.

These are the only signs of ruin — signs traced not by the
finger of Time, but by the hand of the spoiler. So fresh, so
fair is all the rest, that we are fain to cheat ourselves for a
moment into the belief that what we see is work not marred,
but arrested. Those columns, depend on it, are yet unfinished.
That pavement is about to be relaid. It would not surprise us
to find the masons here to-morrow morning, or the sculptor,
with mallet and chisel, carrying on that band of lotus buds and
bees. Far more difficult is it to believe that they all struck
work for ever some two-and-twenty centuries ago.

Here and there, where the foundations have been disturbed,
one sees that the columns are constructed of sculptured blocks,
the fragments of some earlier Temple ; while, at a height of
about six feet from the ground, a Greek cross cut deep into the
side of the shaft stamps upon each pillar the seal of Christian
worship.

uninjured and very lovely ornament. See, more particularly, the mosaic
pattern upon the throne of a divinity just over the second doorway in
the western wall ; and the designs upon a series of other thrones a little
farther along towards the north, all most delicately drawn in uniform
compartments, picked out in the three primaiy colours, and laid on in flat
tints of wonderful purity and delicacy. Among these a lotus between two
buds, an exquisite little sphinx on a pale red ground, and a series of
sacred hawks, white upon red, alternating with white upon blue, all most
exquisitely conventionalised, may be cited as examples of absolutely perfect
treatment and design in polychrome decoration. A more instructive and
delightful task than the copying of these precious fragments can hardly be
commended to students and sketchers on the Nile.

PAINTKI) COLUMNS, IDKTICO OK LARGE TEMl'LK, l'HIL>:.

2l8

PHILjE.

For the Copts who choked the colonnades and courtyards
with their hovels seized also on the Temples. Some they
pulled down for building material ; others they appropriated.
We can never know how much they destroyed ; but two large
convents on the eastern bank a little higher up the river, and
a small basilica at the north end of the island, would seem tc
have been built with the magnificent masonry of the southern

BASLY CHRISTIAN SHRINE, PHILyB.

quay, as well as with blocks taken from a structure which
once occupied the south-eastern corner of the great colonnade.
As for this beautiful painted portico, they turned it into a
chapel, A little rough-hewn niche in the east wall, and an
overturned credence -table fashioned from a single block of
limestone, mark the site of the chancel. The Arabs, taking

PHIL^. 219

this last for a gravestone, have pulled it up, according to their
usual practice, in search of treasure buried with the dead. On
the front of the credence-table,^ and over the niche which some
unskilled but pious hand has decorated with rude Byzantine
carvings, the Greek cross is again conspicuous.

The religious history of Philae is so curious that it is a
pity it should not find an historian. It shared with Abydos
and some other places the reputation of being the burial-place
of Osiris. It was called "the Holy Island." Its very soil was
sacred. None might land upon its shores, or even approach
them too nearly, without permission. To obtain that permis-
sion and perform the pilgrimage to the tomb of the God, was
to the pious Egyptian what the Mecca pilgrimage is to the
pious Mussulman of to-day. The most solemn oath to which
he could give utterance was " By Him who sleeps in Philae."

When and how the island first came to be regarded as the
resting-place of the most beloved of the Gods does not appear ;
but its reputation for sanctity seems to have been of com-
paratively modern date. It probably rose into importance as
Abydos declined. Herodotus, who is supposed to have gone
as far as Elephantine, made minute enquiry concerning the river
above that point ; and he relates that the Cataract was in the
occupation of " Ethiopian nomads." He, however, makes no
mention of Philae or its Temples. This omission on the part
of one who, wherever he went, sought the society of the priests
and paid particular attention to the religious observances of the
coVinXxy, shows that either Herodotus never got so far, or that the
island had not yet become the home of the Osirian mysteries.
Four hundred years later, Diodorus Siculus describes it as the
holiest of holy places ; while Strabo, writing about the same
time, relates that Abydos had then dwindled to a mere village
It seems possible, therefore, that at som.e period subsequent tc
the time of Herodotus and prior to that of Diodorus or Strabo,
the priests of Isis may have migrated from Abydos to Phil^ ;
in which case there would have been a formal transfer not only
of the relics of Osiris, but of the sanctity which had attached

^ It has since been pointed out by a writer in The Saturday Re^new
that this credence-table was fashioned with part of a shrine destined for
one of the captive hawks sacred to Horus. [Note to Second Edition.]

220 PHIL^.

for ages to their original resting-place. Nor is the motive for
such an exodus wanting. The ashes of the God were no
longer safe at Abydos. Situate in the midst of a rich corn
country on the high road to Thebes, no city south of Memphis
lay more exposed to the hazards of war. Cambyses had
already passed that way. Other invaders might follow. To
seek beyond the frontier that security which might no longer
be found in Egypt, would seem therefore to be the obvious
course of a priestly guild devoted to its trust. This, of course,
is mere conjecture, to be taken for what it may be worth.
The decadence of Abydos coincides, at all events, with the
growth of Philae ; and it is only by help of some such assump-
tion that one can understand how a new site should have
suddenly arisen to such a height of holiness.

The earliest Temple here, of which only a small propylon
remains, would seem to have been built by the last of the
native Pharaohs (Nectanebo II, B.C. 361); but the high and
palmy days of Philae belong to the period of Greek and
Roman rule. It was in the time of the Ptolemies that the
Holy Island became the seat of a Sacred College and the
stronghold of a powerful hierarchy. Visitors from all parts of
Egypt, travellers from distant lands, court functionaries from
Alexandria charged with royal gifts, came annually in crowds
to offer their vows at the tomb of the God. They have cut
their names by hundreds all over the principal Temple, just
like tourists of to-day. Some of these antique autographs
are written upon and across those of preceding visitors ; while
others — palimpsests upon stone, so to say — having been
scratched on the yet unsculptured surface of doorway and
pylon, are seen to be older than the hieroglyphic texts which
were afterwards carved over them. These inscriptions cover
a period of several centuries, during which time successive
Ptolemies and Caesars continued to endow the island. Rich
in lands, in temples, in the localisation of a great national
myth, the Sacred College was yet strong enough in a.d. 379
to oppose a practical resistance to the Edict of Theodosius.
At a word from Constantinople, the whole land of Egypt was
forcibly Christianised. Priests were forbidden under pain of
death to perform the sacred rites. Hundreds of temples were

PHIL^. 221

plundered. Forty thousand statues of divinities were destroyed
at one fell swoop. Meanwhile, the brotherhood of Philse,
entrenched behind the Cataract and the desert, survived the
degradation of their order and the ruin of their immemorial
faith. It is not known with certainty for how long they
continued to transmit their hereditary privileges ; but two of
the above-mentioned votive inscriptions show that so late aS
A.D. 453 the priestly families were still in occupation of the
island, and still celebrating the mysteries of Osiris and Isis.
There even seems reason for believing that the ancient worship
continued to hold its own till the end of the sixth century, at
which time, according to an inscription at Kalabsheh, of which
I shall have more to say hereafter, Silco, " King of all the
Ethiopians," himself apparently a Christian, twice invaded
Lower Nubia, where God, he says, gave him the victory, and
the vanquished swore to him " by their idols " to observe the
terms of peace.^

There is nothing in this record to show that the invaders
went beyond Tafa, the ancient Taphis, which is twenty-seven
miles above Philse ; but it seems reasonable to conclude that so
long as the old gods yet reigned in any part of Nubia, the
island sacred to Osiris would maintain its traditional sanctity.

At length, however, there must have come a day when for
the last time the tomb of the God was crowned with flowers,

1 In the time of Strabo, the island of Philae, as has been recently
shown by Professor Revillout in his Seconde Menioire sur les Blemmys,
was the common property of the Egyptians and Nubians, or rather of that
obscure nation called the Blemmys, who, with the Nobades and Megabares,
were collectively classed at that time as " Ethiopians." The Blemmys
(ancestors of the present Barabras) were a stalwart and valiant race,
powerful enough to treat on equal terms with the Roman rulers of Egypt.
They were devout adorers of Isis, and it is interesting to learn that in the
treaty of Maximin with this nation, it is expressly provided that, "according
to the old law," the Blemmys were entitled to take the statue of Isis every
year from the sanctuary of Philce to their own country for a visit of a stated
period. A graffito at Philte, published by Letronne, states that the writer
was at Phi las when the image of the goddess was brought back from one
of these periodical excursions, and that he beheld the arrival of the sacred
boats "containing the shrines of the divine statues." From this it would
appear that other images than that of Isis had been taken to Ethiopia ;
probably those of Osiris and Horus, and possibly also that of Hathor, the
divine nurse. [Note to Second Edition.]

222 PHILjE.

and the " Lamentations of Isis " were recited on the threshold
of the sanctuary. And there must have come another day
when the cross was carried in triumph up those painted
colonnades, and the first Christian mass was chanted in the
precincts of the heathen. One would like to know how these
changes were brought about ; whether the old faith died out
for want of worshippers, or was expelled with clamour and
violence. But upon this point, history is vague ^ and the
graffiti of the time are silent. We only know for certain
that the old went out, and the new came in ; and that where
the resurrected Osiris was wont to be worshipped according to
the most sacred mysteries of the Egyptian ritual, the resurrected
Christ was now adored after the simple fashion of the primitive
Coptic Church.

And now the Holy Island, near which it was believed no
fish had power to swim or bird to fly, and upon whose soil
no pilgrim might set foot without permission, became all at
once the common property of a populous community. Courts,
colonnades, even terraced roofs, were overrun with little crude-
brick dwellings. A small basilica was built at the lower end
of the island. The portico of the Great Temple was converted
into a Chapel, and dedicated to Saint Stephen. " This good
work," says a Greek inscription traced there by some monkish
hand of the period, " was done by the well-beloved of God,
the Abbot-Bishop Theodore." Of this same Theodore, whom
another inscription styles " the very holy father," we know
nothing but his name.

The walls hereabout are full of these, fugitive records.
" The cross has conquered, and will ever conquer," writes one
anonymous scribe. Others have left simple signatures ; as, for
instance — " I, Joseph," in one place, and " I, Theodosius of
Nubia," in another. Here and there an added word or two
give a more human interest to the autograph. So, in the
pathetic scrawl of one who writes himself " Johannes, a slave,"
we seem to read the story of a life in a single line. These
Coptic signatures are all followed by the sign of the cross.

I The Emperor Justinian is credited with the mutilation of the sculptures
of the large Temple ; but the ancient worship was probably only temporarily
suspended in his time.

PHIL^E. 223

The foundations of the little basilica, with its apse towards
the east and its two doorways to the west, are still traceable.
We set a couple of our sailors one day to clear away the
rubbish at the lower end of the nave, and found the font —
a rough stone basin at the foot of a broken column.

It is not difficult to guess what Philae must have been like
in the days of Abbot Theodore and his flock. The little
basilica, we may be sure, had a cluster of mud domes upon the
roof ; and I fancy, somehow, that the Abbot and his monks
installed themselves in that row of cells on the east side of
the great colonnade, where the priests of Isis dwelt before
them. As for the village, it must have been just like Luxor
— swarming with dusky life ; noisy with the babble of children,
the cackling of poultry, and the barking of dogs ; sending up
thin pillars of blue smoke at noon ; echoing to the measured
chime of the prayer- bell at morn and even ; and sleeping at
night as soundly as if no ghost -like, mutilated Gods were
looking on mournfully in the moonlight.

The Gods are avenged now. The creed which dethroned
them is dethroned. Abbot Theodore and his successors, and
the religion they taught, and the simple folk that listened to
their teaching, are gone and forgotten. For the Church of
Christ, which still languishes in Egypt, is extinct in Nubia.
It lingered long ; though doubtless in some such degraded and
barbaric form as it wears in Abyssinia to this day. But it was
absorbed by Islaniism at last ; and only a ruined convent
perched here and there upon .some solitary height, or a few
crosses rudely carved on the walls of a Ptolemaic Temple,
remain to show that Christianity once passed that way.

The mediaeval history of Philae is almost a blank. The
Arabs, having invaded Egypt towards the middle of the
seventh century, were long in the land before they began to
cultivate literature ; and for more than three hundred years
history is silent. It is not till the tenth century that we once
again catch a fleeting glimpse of Philae. The frontier is now
removed to the head of the Cataract. The Holy Island has
ceased to be Christian ; ceased to be Nubian ; contains a
mosque and garrison, and is the last fortified outpost of the
Moslems. It still retains, and apparently continues to retain

224 PHIL^.

for some centuries longer, its ancient Egyptian name. That
is to say (P being as usual converted into B) the Pilak of the
hieroglyphic inscriptions becomes in Arabic Belak ;^ which is
much more like the original than the Philae of the Greeks.

The native Christians, meanwhile, would seem to have
relapsed into a state of semi-barbarism. They make perpetual
inroads upon the Arab frontier, and suffer perpetual defeat.
Battles are fought ; tribute is exacted ; treaties are made and
broken. Towards the close of the thirteenth century, their
king being slain and their churches plundered, they lose one-
fourth of their territory, including all that part which borders
upon Assuan. Those who remain Christians are also con-
demned to pay an annual capitation tax, in addition to the
usual tribute of dates, cotton, slaves, and camels. After this
we may conclude that they accepted Islamism from the Arabs,
as they had accepted Osiris from the Egyptians and Christ
from the Romans. As Christians, at all events, we hear of
them no more ; for Christianity in Nubia perished root and
branch, and not a Copt, it is said, may now be found above
the frontier.

Philae was still inhabited in A.D. 1799, when a detachment
of Desaix's army under General Beliard took possession of the
island, and left an inscription ^ on the soffit of the doorway of
the great pylon to commemorate the passage of the Cataract.
Denon, describing the scene with his usual vivacity, relates

1 These and the following particulars about the Christians of Nubia
are found in the famous work of Makrizi, an Arab historian of the fifteenth
century, who quotes largely from earlier writers. See Burckhardt's Travels
in Nubia, 4to, 1819, Appendix iii. Although Belak is distinctly described
as an island in the neighbourhood of the Cataract, distant four miles from
Assuan, Burckhardt persisted in looking for it among the islets below
Mahatta, and believed Philae to be the first Nubian town beyond the
frontier. The hieroglyphic alphabet, however, had not then been de-
ciphered. Burckhardt died at Cairo in 181 7, and Champollion's discovery
was not given to the world till 1822.

' This inscription, which M. About considers the most interesting thing
in Philae, runs as follows : " L'An VI de la R^publique, le i 5 Messidor,
une Arm^e Fran9aise command^e par Bonaparte est descendue a Alex-
andrie. L'Armee ayant mis, vingt jours apres, les Mamelouks en fuite
aux Pyramides, Desaix, commandant la premiere division, les a poursuivis
au dela des Cataractes, ou il est arrive le 18 Ventose de I'an VII."

PHILyE. 225

how the natives first defied and then fled from the French ;
flinging themselves into the river, drowning such of their
children as were too young to swim, and escaping into the
desert. They appear at this time to have been mere savages
— the women ugly and sullen ; the men naked, agile, quarrel-
some, and armed not only with swords and spears, but with
matchlock guns, which they used to keep up " a brisk and
well-directed fire."

Their abandonment of the island probably dates from this
time; for when Burckhardt went up in A.D. 181 3, he found it,
as we Found it to this day, deserted and solitary. One poor
old man — if indeed he still lives — is now the one inhabitant of
Philae ; and I suspect he only crosses over from Biggeh in the
tourist -season. He calls himself, with or without authority,
the guardian of the island ; sleeps in a nest of rags and straw
in a sheltered corner behind the great Temple ; and is so
wonderfully wizened and bent and knotted up, that nothing of
him seems quite alive except his eyes. We gave him fifty
copper paras ^ for a parting present when on our way back to
Egypt ; and he was so oppressed by the consciousness of
wealth, that he immediately buried his treasure and implored
us to tell no one what we had given him.

With the French siege and the flight of the native popula-
tion closes the last chapter of the local history of Philae. The
Holy Island has done henceforth with wars of creeds or kings.
It disappears from the domain of history, and enters the domain
of science. To have contributed to the discovery of the hiero-
glyphic alphabet is a high distinction ; and in no sketch of
Philae, however slight, should the obelisk ^ that furnished
Champollion with the name of Cleopatra be allowed to pass
unnoticed. This monument, second only to the Rosetta Stone
in point of philological interest, was carried off by Mr. W.
Bankes, the discoverer of the first Tablet of Abydos, and is
now in Dorsetshire. Its empty socket and its fellow obelisk,
mutilated and solitary, remain in situ at the southern extremity
of the island.

And now — for we have lingered over long in the portico —
it is time we glanced at the interior of the Temple. So we
^ About two-and-sixpence English. 2 See previous note, p. 211.

226 PHIL^.

go in at the central door, beyond which open some nine or
ten halls and side-chambers leading, as usual, to the sanctuary.
Here all is dark, earthy, oppressive. In rooms unlighted by
the faintest gleam from without, we find smoke-blackened walls
covered with elaborate bas-reliefs. Mysterious passages, pitch-
dark, thread the thickness of the walls and communicate by
means of trap-like openings with vaults below. In the sanctuary
lies an overthrown altar ; while in the corner behind it stands
the very niche in which Strabo must have seen that poor
sacred hawk of Ethiopia which he describes as "sick, and
nearly dead."

But in this Temple dedicated not only to Isis, but to the
memory of Osiris and the worship of Horus their son, there
is one chamber which we may be quite sure was shown neither
to Strabo nor Diodorus, nor to any stranger of alien faith, be
his repute or station what it might ; a chamber holy above all
others ; holier even than the sanctuary ; — the chamber sacred
to Osiris. We, however, unrestricted, unforbidden, are free to
go where we list ; and our books tell us that this mysterious
chamber is somewhere overhead. So, emerging once again
into the daylight, we go up a well-worn staircase leading out
upon the roof

This roof is an intricate, up-and-down place ; and the
room is not easy to find. It lies at the bottom of a little flight
of steps — a small stone cell some twelve feet square, lighted only
from the doorway. The walls are covered with sculptures
representing the shrines, the mummification, and the resurrection
of Osiris.^ These shrines, containing each some part of his

1 The story of Osiris — the beneficent God, the friend of man, slain
and dismembered by Typhon ; buried in a score of graves ; sought by Isis ;
recovered limb by limb ; resuscitated in the flesh ; transferred from earth
to reign over the dead in the world of Shades — is one of the most com-
plex of Egyptian legends. Osiris under some aspects is the Nile. He
personifies Abstract Good, and is entitled Unnefer, or " The Good Being."
He appears as a Myth of the Solar Year. He bears a notable likeness to
Prometheus, and to the Indian Bacchus.

" Osiris, dit-on, ^tait autrefois descendu sur la terre. Etre bon par
excellence, il avait adouci les moeurs des hommes par la persuasion et la
bienfaisance. Mais il avait succombe sous les embuches de Typhon, son
fr^re, le genie du mal, et pendant que ses deux sceurs, Isis et Nephthys,
recueillaient son corps qui avait €\.€ jete dans le fleuve, le dieu ressuscitait

PHIL^.

227

body, are variously fashioned. His head, for instance, rests on
a Nilometer ; his arm, surmounted by a head, is sculptured on

a stela, in shape resembling a high-shouldered bottle, surmounted
by one of the head dresses peculiar to the God ; his legs and

d'entre les morts et apparaissait k son fils Horus, qu'il instituait son
vengeur. C'est ce sacrifice qu'il avait autrefois accompli en faveur des
hommes qu'Osiris renouvelle ici en faveur de I'ame degag^e de ses liens
terrestres. Non seulement il devient son guide, mais il s'identifie k elle ;
il I'absorbe en son propre sein. C'est lui alors qui, devenu le defunt lui-
meme, se soumet k toutes les epreuves que celui-ci doit subir avant d'etre
proclamd juste ; c'est lui qui, h. chaque ame qu'il doit sauver, flechit les
gardiens des demeures infernales et combat les monstres compagnons de
la nuit et de la mort ; c'est lui enfin qui, vainqueur des tdnebres, avec
I'assistance d'Horus, s'assied au tribunal de la supreme justice et ouvre k
I'ame ddclaree pure les portes du sejour ^ternel. L'image de la mort aura
€\.€ empruntde au soleil qui disparait k I'horizon du soir ; le soleil resplendis-
sant du matin sera la symbole de cette seconde naissance k une vie qui,
cette fois, ne connaitra pas la mort.

" Osiris est done le principe du bien. . . , Charg^ de sauver les ames
de la mort definitive, il est I'intermddiaire entre I'homme et Dieu ; il est
le type et le sauveur de I'homme." Notice des Monumoits ct Boulaq —
Aug. Mariette Bey, 1872, pp. 105 et seq.

[It has always been taken for granted by Egyptologists that Osiris was
originally a local God of Abydos, and that Abydos was the cradle of the

228

PHIL^.

feet He at full length in a pylon-shaped mausoleum. Upon
another shrine stands the mitre-shaped crown which he wears

as Judge of the Lower World. Isis and Nephthys keep guard
over each shrine. In a lower frieze we see the mummy of the

Osirian Myth. Professor Maspero, however, in some of his recent lectures
at the College de France, has shown that the Osirian cult took its rise in
the Delta ; and, in point of fact, Osiris, in certain ancient inscriptions, is
styled the King Osiris " Lord of Tattu " (Busiris), and has his name
enclosed in a royal oval. Up to the time of the Grasco-Roman rule, the
only two cities of Egypt in which Osiris reigned as the principal God
were Busiris and Mendes.

" Le centre terrestre du culte d'Osiris, dtait dans les cantons nord-est
du Delta, situ^s entre la branche Sebennytique et la branche Pelusiaque,
comme le centre terrestre du culte de Sit, le frfere et le meurtrier d'Osiris :
les deux dieux etaient limitrophes I'un de I'autre, et des rivalites de voisinage
expliquent peut-etre en partie leurs querelles. . . . Tous les traits de la
tradition Osirienne ne sont pas egalement anciens : le fond me parait etre
d'une antiquitd incontestable. Osiris y reunit les caract^res des deux
divinitds qui se partageaient chaque nome : il est le dieu des vivants et
le dieu des morts en meme temps ; le dieu qui nourrit et le dieu qui
d^truit. Probablement, les temps oil, saisi de pitie pour les mortels, il
leur ouvrit I'accfes de son royaume, avaient ^te pr^cedds d'autres temps ou
il ^tait impitoyable et ne songeait qu'k les aneantir. Je crois trouver un
souvenir de ce role destructeur d'Osiris dans plusieurs passages des textes
des Pyramides, ou I'on promet au moit que Harkhouti viendra vers lui,
' deliant ses liens, brisant ses chaines pour le delivrer de la ruine ; il ne le
livrera pas ct Osiris, si Men quHl ne mourra pas, mais il sera glorieux dans
I'horizon, solide comme le Did dans la ville de Didou.' L'Osiris farouche
et cruel fut absorbd promptement par I'Osiris doux et bienveillant.
L'Osiris qui domine toute la religion ^gyptienne d^s le debut, c'est I'Osiris
Onnofris, I'Osiris Etre bon, que les Grecs ont connu. Commes ses
parents, Sibou et Nouit, Osiris Onnofris appartient k la classe des dieux
g^n^raux qui ne sont pas confines en un seul canton, mais qui sont adords

Phil^.

i2^

god laid upon a bier, with the four so-called cancpic jars ^
ranged underneath. A little farther on, he lies in state,

RESURRECTION OF OSIRIS.

surrounded by lotus buds on tall stems, figurative of growth,
or returning Hfe.^ Finally, he is depicted lying on a couch ;
his limbs reunited ; his head, left hand, and left foot upraised,
as in the act of returning to consciousness, Nephthys, in the
guise of a winged genius, fans him with the breath of life.

par un pays entier." See Les Hypogees Royaux de Thebes (Bulletin
critique de la religion egyptienne) par Professeur G. Maspero — Revue de
rhistoire des Religions, 1888. Note to Second Edition.]

"The astronomical and physical elements are too obvious to be mis-
taken. Osiris and Isis are the Nile and Egypt. The myth of Osiris
typifies the solar year — the power of Osiris is the sun in the lower hemi-
sphere, the winter solstice. The birth of Horus typifies the vernal equinox
— the victory of Horus, the summer solstice — the inundation of the Nile.
Typhon is the autumnal equinox." Egypt's Place in Universal History —
BUNSEN, ist ed, vol. i. p. 437.

" The Egyptians do not all worship the same gods, excepting Isis and
Osiris." — Herodotus, Book ii.

1 "These vases, made of alabaster, calcareous stone, porcelain, terra-
cotta, and even wood, were destined to hold the soft parts or viscera of
the body, embalmed separately and deposited in them. They were four
in number, and were made in the shape of the four genii of the Karneter,
or Hades, to whom were assigned the four cardinal points of the compass."
Birch's Guide to the First and Second Egyptian Rooms, 1874, p. 89. See
also Birch's History of Ancient Pottery, 1873, P- 23 et seq.

2 Thus depicted, he is called " the germinating Osiris." [Note to
Second Edition.]

230 PHIL^.

I sis, with outstretched arms, stands at his feet and seems to
be calling him back to her embraces. The scene represents,
in fact, that supreme moment when Isis pours forth her
passionate invocations, and Osiris is resuscitated by virtue of
the songs of the divine sisters.^

Ill -modelled and ill -cut as they are, there is a clownish
naturalness about these little sculptures which lifts them above
the conventional dead level of ordinary Ptolemaic work. The
figures tell their tale intelligibly. Osiris seems really struggling
to rise, and the action of Isis expresses clearly enough the
intention of the artist. Although a few heads have been
mutilated and the surface of the stone is somewhat degraded,
the subjects are by no means in a bad state of preservation.
In the accompanying sketches, nothing has been done to
improve the defective drawing or repair the broken outlines of
the originals. Osiris in one has lost his foot, and in another
his face ; the hands of Isis are as shapeless as those of a bran
doll ; and the naivete of the treatment verges throughout upon
caricature. But the interest attaching to them is altogether
apart from the way in which they are executed.

And now, returning to the roof, it is pleasant to breathe
the fresher air that comes with sunset — to see the island, in
shape like an ancient Egyptian shield, lying mapped out
beneath one's feet. From here, we look back upon the way
we have come, and forward to the way we are going. North-
ward lies the Cataract — a network of islets with flashes of
river between. Southward, the broad current comes on in
one smooth, glassy sheet, unbroken by a single rapid. How
eagerly we turn our eyes that way ; for yonder lie Abou
Simbel and all the mysterious lands beyond the Cataracts !
But we cannot see far, for the river curves away grandly to the
right, and vanishes behind a range of granite hills. A similar
chain hems in the opposite bank ; while high above the palm-
groves fringing the edge of the shore stand two ruined convents
on two rocky prominences, like a couple of castles on the
Rhine. On the east bank opposite, a io.^ mud houses and a
group of superb carob trees mark the site of a village, the

^ See M. P. J. de Horrack's translation of The Lamentations of Isis
and Nephthys. RECORDS OF THE PAST, vol. ii. p. W] et seq.

greater part of which lies hidden among palms. Behind this
village opens a vast sand valley, like an arm of the sea from
which the waters have retreated. The old channel along
which we rode the other day went ploughing that way straight
across from Philae. Last of all, forming the western side of
this fourfold view, we have the island of Biggeh — rugged,
mountainous, and divided from Philae by so narrow a channel
that every sound from the native village on the opposite steep
is as audible as though it came from the courtyard at our feet.
That village is built in and about the ruins of a tiny Ptolemaic
Temple, of which only a screen and doorway and part of a
small propylon remain. We can see a woman pounding coffee
on the threshold of one of the huts, and some children
scrambling about the rocks in pursuit of a wandering turkey.
Catching sight of us up here on the roof of the Temple, they
come whooping and scampering down to the water-side, and
with shrill cries importune us for backshish. Unless the
stream is wider than it looks, one might almost pitch a piastre
into their outstretched hands.

Mr. Hay, it is said, discovered a secret passage of solid
masonry tunnelled under the river from island to island. The
entrance on this side was from a shaft in the Temple of Isis.^
We are not told how far Mr. Hay was able to penetrate in the
direction of Biggeh ; but the passage would lead up, most
probably, to the little Temple opposite.

Perhaps the most entirely curious and unaccustomed
features in all this scene are the mountains. They are like
none that any of us have seen in our diverse wanderings.
Other mountains are homogeneous, and thrust themselves up
from below in masses suggestive of primitive disruption and
upheaval. These seem to lie upon the surface foundationless ;
rock loosely piled on rock, boulder on boulder ; like stupendous
cairns, the work of demigods and giants. Here and there, on
shelf or summit, a huge rounded mass, many tons in weight,
hangs poised capriciously. Most of these blocks, I am per-
suaded, would " log," if put to the test.

But for a specimen stone, commend me to yonder amazing

1 Operations carried on at the Pyramids of Ghizeh — COL. Howard
VVSE, London, 1840, vol. i. p. 63.

232

PHIL^.

monolith down by the water's edge opposite, near the carob
trees and the ferry. Though but a single block of orange-red
granite, it looks like three ; and the Arabs, seeing in it some
fancied resemblance to an arm-chair, call it Pharaoh's throne.
Rounded and polished by primaeval floods, and emblazoned
with royal cartouches of extraordinary size, it seems to have
attracted the attention of pilgrims in all ages. Kings, con-
querors, priests, travellers, have covered it with records of

f PlI&B

INSCRIBED MD.NOLITHIC KOCK, PHIL/E.

victories, of religious festivals, of prayers, and offerings, and
acts of adoration. Some of these are older by a thousand
years and more than the temples on the island opposite.

Such, roughly summed up, are the fourfold surroundings
of Philae — the cataract, the river, the desert, the environing
mountains. The Holy Island — beautiful, lifeless, a thing of
the far past, with all its wealth of sculpture, painting, history,
poetry, tradition — sleeps, or seems to sleep, in the midst.

It is one of the world's famous landscapes, and it deserves
its fame. Every sketcher sketches it ; every traveller describes

PHIL^. Ill

it. Yet it is just one of those places of which the objective
and subjective features are so equally balanced that it bears
putting neither into words nor colours. The sketcher must
perforce leave out the atmosphere of association which inform*
his subject ; and the writer's description is at best no bettei
than a catalojTue raisonnce.

CHAPTER Xllt.

PHIL^E TO KOROSKO.

oAILING gently southward — the river opening wide before
us, Philse dwindling in the rear — we feel that we are now
fairly over the border ; and that if Egypt was strange and far
from home, Nubia is stranger and farther still. The Nile here
flows deep and broad. The rocky heights that hem it in so
close on either side are still black on the one hand, golden on
the other. The banks are narrower than ever. The space in
some places is little wider than a towing-path. In others,
there is barely room for a belt of date-palms and a slip of
alluvial soil, every foot of which produces its precious growth
of durra or barley. The steep verge below is green with
lentils to the water's edge. As the river recedes, it leaves
each day a margin of fresh, wet soil, in which the careful
husbandman hastens to scratch a new furrow and sow another
line of seeds. He cannot afford to let so much as an inch of
that kindly mud lie idle.

Gliding along with half-filled sail, we observe how entirely
the population seems to be regulated by the extent of arable
soil. Where the inundation has room to spread, villages come
thicker ; more dusky figures are seen moving to and fro in
the shade of the palms ; more children race along the banks,
shrieking for backshish. When the shelf of soil is narrowed,
on the contrary, to a mere fringe of luminous green dividing
the rock from the river, there is a startling absence of every-
thing like life. Mile after mile drags its slow length along,
uncheered by any sign of human habitation. When now and

PHIL^ TO KOROSKO. . 235

then a solitary native, armed with gun or spear, is seen striding
along the edge of the desert, he only seems to make the
general solitude more apparent.

Meanwhile, it is not only men and women whom we miss
— men labouring by the river-side ; women with babies astride
on their shoulders, or water-jars balanced on their heads —
but birds, beasts, boats ; everything that we have been used
to see along the river. The buffaloes dozing at midday in
the shallows, the camels stalking home in single file towards
sunset, the water-fowl haunting the sandbanks, seem suddenly
to have vanished. Even donkeys are now rare ; and as for
horses, I do not remember to have seen one during the seven
weeks we spent in Nubia. All night, too, instead of the usual
chorus of dogs barking furiously from village to village, we
hear only the long-drawn wail of an occasional jackal. It is
not wonderful, however, that animal life should be scarce in a
district where the scant soil yields barely food enough for those
who till it. To realise how very scant it is, one needs only
to remember that about Derr, where it is at its widest, the
annual deposit nowhere exceeds half-a-mile in breadth ; while
for the most part of the way between Philae and Wady Halfeh
— a distance of 210 miles — it averages from six to sixty
yards.

Here, then, more than ever, one seems to see how entirely
these lands which we call Egypt and Nubia are nothing but
the banks of one solitary river in the midst of a world of
desert. In Egypt, the valley is often so wide that one forgets
the stony waste beyond the corn -lands. But in Nubia, the
desert is ever present. We cannot forget it, if we would.
The barren mountains press upon our path, showering down
avalanches of granite on the one side and torrents of yellow
sand on the other. We know that those stones are always
falling ; that those sands are always drifting ; that the river
has hard work to hold its own ; and that the desert is silently
encroaching day by day.

These golden sand - streams are the newest and most
beautiful feature in the landscape. They pour down from the
high level of the Libyan desert just as the snows of Switzer-
land pour down from the upper plateaux of the Alps. Through

236 PHIL^ TO KOROSKO.

every ravine and gap they find a channel — here trickling in
tiny rivulets ; flowing yonder in broad torrents that widen to
the river.

Becalmed a few miles above Philae, we found ourselves
at the foot of one of these largest drifts. The M. B.'s
challenged us to climb the slope, and see the sunset from the
desert. It was about six o'clock, and the thermometer was
standing at 80° in the coolest corner of the large saloon. We
ventured to suggest that the top was a long way up ; but the
M. B.'s would take no refusal. So away we went ; panting,
breathless, bewailing our hard fate. L. and the Writer had
done some difficult walking in their time, over ice and snow,
on lava cold and hot, up cinder-slopes and beds of mountain
torrents ; but this innocent-looking sand-drift proved quite as
hard to climb as any of them. The sand lies wonderfully
loose and light, and is as hot as if it had been baked in an
oven. Into this the foot plunges ankle-deep, slipping back at
every step, and leaving a huge hole into which the sand pours
down again like water. Looking back, you trace your course
by a succession of funnel-shaped pits, each larger than a wash-
hand basin. Though your slipper be as small as Cinderella's,
the next comer shall not be able to tell whether it was a lady
who went up last, or a camel. It is toilsome work, too ; for
the foot finds neither rest nor resistance, and the strain upon
the muscles is unremitting.

But the beauty of the sand more than repays the fatigue
of climbing it. Smooth, sheeny, satiny ; fine as diamond-dust ;
supple, undulating, luminous, it lies in the most exquisite
curves and wreaths, like a snow-drift turned to gold. Re-
modelled by every breath that blows, its ever-varying surface
presents an endless play of delicate lights and shadows. There
lives not the sculptor who could render those curves ; and I
doubt whether Turner himself, in his tenderest and subtlest
mood, could have done justice to those complex greys and
ambers.

Having paused to rest upon an out-cropping ledge of rock
about half-way up, we came at length to the top of the last
slope and found ourselves on the level of the desert. Here,
faithful to the course of the river, the first objects to meet

PHIL^ TO KOROSKO. 237

our eyes were the old familiar telegraph-posts and wires.
Beyond them, to north and south, a crowd of peaks closed in
the view ; but westward, a rolling waste of hillock and hollow
opened away to where the sun, a crimson globe, had already
half-vanished below the rim of the world.

One could not resist going a few steps farther, just to
touch the nearest of those telegraph posts. It was like reach-
ing out a hand towards home.

When the sun dropped, we turned back. The valley below
was already steeped in dusk. The Nile, glimmering like a
coiled snake in the shade, reflected the evening sky in three
separate reaches. On the Arabian side, a far-off mountain-
chain stood out, purple and jagged, against the eastern horizon.

To come down was easy. Driving our heels well into the
sand, we half ran, half glissaded, and soon reached the bottom.
Here we were met by an old Nubian woman, who had trudged
up in all haste from the nearest village to question our sailors
about one Yusef, her son, of whom she had heard nothing for
nearly a year. She was a very poor old woman — a widow —
and this Yusef was her only son. Hoping to better himself,
he had worked his passage to Cairo in a cargo -boat some
eighteen months ago. Twice since then he had sent her
messages and money ; but now eleven months had gone by
in silence, and she feared he must be dead. Meanwhile her
date-palm, taxed to the full value of its produce, had this year
yielded not a piastre of profit. Her mud-hut had fallen in,
and there was no Yusef to repair it. Old and sick, she now
could only beg ; and her neighbours, by whose charity she
subsisted, were but a shade less poor than herself

Our men knew nothing of the missing Ydsef Reis Hassan
promised when he went back to make inquiries among the
boatmen of Boulak : " But then," he added, " there are so
many Yusefs in Cairo !"

It made one's heart ache to see the tremulous eagerness
with which the poor soul put her questions, and the crushed
look in her face when she turned away.

And now, being fortunate in respect of the wind, which for
the most part blows steadily from the north between sunrise
and sunset, we make good progress, and for the next ten

238 PHIL/E TO KOROSKO.

days live pretty much on board our dahabeeyah. The main
features of the landscape go on repeating themselves with but
little variation from day to day. The mountains wear their
habitual livery of black and gold. The river, now widening,
now narrowing, flows between banks blossoming with lentils
and lupins. With these, and yellow acacia-tufts, and blue
castor-oil berries, and the weird coloquintida, with its downy
leaf and milky juice and puff-bladder fruit, like a green peach
tinged with purple, we make our daily bouquet for the dinner-
table. All other flowers have vanished, and even these are
hard to get in a land where every green blade is precious to
the grower.

Now, too, the climate becomes sensibly warmer. The heat
of the sun is so great at midday that, even with the north
breeze blowing, we can no longer sit on deck between twelve
and three. Towards sundown, when the wind drops, it turns
so sultry that to take a walk on shore comes to be regarded
as a duty rather than as a pleasure. Thanks, however, to that
indomitable Painter who is always ready for an afternoon
excursion, we do sometimes walk for an hour before dinner ;
striking off generally into the desert ; looking for onyxes and
carnelians among the pebbles that here and there strew the
surface of the sand, and watching in vain for jackals and
desert-hares.

Sometimes we follow the banks instead of the desert,
coming now and then to a creaking Sakkieh turned by a
melancholy buffalo ; or to a native village hidden behind
dwarf- palms. Here each hut has its tiny forecourt, in the
midst of which stand the mud-oven and mud-cupboard of the
family — two dumpy cones of smooth grey clay, like big
chimney-pots — the one capped with a lid, the other fitted with
a little wooden door and wooden bolt. Some of the houses
have a barbaric ornament palmed off, so to say, upon the
walls ; the pattern being simply the impression of a human
hand dipped in red or yellow ochre, and applied while the
surface is moist.

The amount of " bazaar " that takes place whenever we
enter one of these villages, is quite alarming. The dogs first
give notice of our approach ; and presently we are surrounded

PHIL^ TO KOROSKO. 239

by all the women and girls of the place, offering live pigeons,
eggs, vegetable marrows, necklaces, nose - rings and silver
bracelets for sale. The boys pester us to buy wretched half-
dead chameleons. The men stand aloof, and leave the
bargaining to the women.

And the women not only know how to bargain, but how
to assess the relative value of every coin that passes current
on the Nile. Rupees, roubles, reyals, dollars and shillings are
as intelligible to them as paras or piastres. Sovereigns are
not too heavy nor napoleons too light for them. The times are
changed since Belzoni's Nubian, after staring contemptuously at
the first piece of money he had ever seen, asked " Who would
give anything for that small piece of metal ? "

The necklaces consist of onyx, carnelian, bone, silver, and
coloured glass beads, with now and then a stray scarab or
amulet in the ancient blue porcelain. The arrangement of
colour is often very subtle. The brow - pendants in gold
repoussee, and the massive old silver bracelets, rough with
knobs and bosses, are most interesting in design, and perpetuate
patterns of undoubted antiquity. The M. B.'s picked up one
really beautiful collarette of silver and coral, which might have
been worn three thousand years ago by Pharaoh's daughter.

When on board, we begin now to keep a sharp look-out for
crocodiles. We hear of them constantly — see their tracks upon
the sand-banks in the river — go through agonies of expectation
over every black speck in the distance ; yet are perpetually
disappointed. The farther south we go, the more impatient we
become. The E.'s, whose dahabeeyah, homeward-bound, drifts
slowly past one calm morning, report " eleven beauties," seen
all together yesterday upon a sand island, some ten miles
higher up. Mr. C. B.'s boat, garlanded with crocodiles from
stem to stern, fills us with envy. We would give our ears
(almost) to see one of these engaging reptiles dangling from
either our own mainmast, or that of the faithful Bagstones.
Alfred, who has set his heart on bagging at least half-a-dozen,
says nothing, but grows gloomier day by day. At night, when
the moon is up and less misanthropic folk are in bed and
asleep, he rambles moodily into the desert, after jackals.

Meanwhile, on we go, starting at sunrise ; mooring at

240 PHIL^ TO KOROSKO.

sunset ; sailing, tracking, punting ; never stopping for an hour
by day, if we can help it ; and pushing straight for Abou
Simbel with as little delay as possible. Thus we pass the
pylons of Dabod with their background of desert ; Gertassee,
a miniature Sunium, seen towards evening against the glowing
sunset ; Tafah, rich in palms, with white columns gleaming
through green foliage by the water-side ; the cliffs, islands, and
rapids of Kalabsheh, and the huge Temple which rises like a
fortress in their midst ; Dendiir, a tiny chapel with a single
pylon ; and Gerf Hossayn, which from this distance might be
taken for the mouth of a rock -cut tomb in the face of the
precipice.

About half way between Kalabsheh and Dendfir, we
enter the Tropic of Cancer. From this day till the day when
we repass that invisible boundary, there is a marked change
in the atmospheric conditions under which we live. The days
get gradually hotter, especially at noon, when the sun is almost
vertical ; but the freshness of night and the chill of early
morning are no more. Unless when a strong wind blows from
the north, we no longer know what it is to need a shawl on
deck in the evening, or an extra covering on our beds towards
dawn. We sleep with our cabin-windows open, and enjoy a
delicious equality of temperature from sundown to sunrise.
The days and nights, too, are of almost equal length.

Now, also, the Southern Cross and a second group of stars,
which we conclude must form part of the Centaur, are visible
between two and four every morning. They have been creep-
ing up, a star at a time, for the last fortnight ; but are still so
low upon the eastern horizon that we can only see them when
there comes a break in the mountain-chain on that side of the
river. At the same time, our old familiar friends of the
northern hemisphere, looking strangely distorted and out of
their proper place, are fast disappearing on the opposite side
of the heavens. Orion seems to be lying on his back, and the
Great Bear to be standing on his tail ; while Cassiopeia and a
number of others have deserted en masse. The zenith, mean-
while, is but thinly furnished ; so that we seem to have
travelled away from the one hemisphere, and not yet to have
reached the other. As for the Southern Cross, we reserve our

PHIL/E TO KOROSKO. 241

opinion till we get farther south. It would be treason to hint
that we are disappointed in so famous a constellation.

After Gerf Hossayn, the next place of importance for
which our maps bid us look out is Dakkeh. As we draw near,
expecting hourly to see something of the Temple, the Nile
increases in breadth and beauty. It is a peaceful, glassy
morning. The men have been tracking since dawn, and stop
to breakfast at the foot of a sandy bank, wooded with tamarisks
and gum-trees. A glistening network of gossamer floats from
bough to bough. The sky overhead is of a tender luminous
blue, such as we never see in Europe. The air is wonderfully
still. The river, which here takes a sudden bend towards the
east, looks like a lake, and seems to be barred ahead by the
desert. Presently a funeral passes along the opposite bank ;
the chief mourner flourishing a long staff, like a drum-major ;
the women snatching up handfuls of dust, and scattering it
upon their heads. We hear their wild wail long after the pro-
cession is out of sieht.

^•**i!&jiw^;^fe#?^*«sS; -

TEMPLE OF DAKKEH. NUBIA.

Going on again presently, our whole attention becomes
absorbed by the new and singular geological features of the
Libyan desert. A vast plain covered with isolated mountains
of volcanic structure, it looks like some strange transformation
of the Puy de Dome plateau, with all its wind-swept pastures
turned to sand, and its grassy craters stripped to barrenness.
The more this plain widens out before our eyes, the more it
bristles with peaks. As we round the corner, and Dakkeh, like

242 philjE to korosko.

a smaller Edfu, comes into sight upon the western bank, the
whole desert on that side, as far as the eye can see, presents
the unmistakable aspect of one vast field of volcanoes. As in
Auvergne, thes^ cones are of all sizes and heights ; some low
and rounded, like mere bubbles that have cooled without
bursting ; others ranging apparently from looo to i 500 feet in
height. The broken craters of several are plainly distinguishable
by the help of a field-glass. One in particular is so like our old
friend the Puy de Pariou, that in a mere black-and-white sketch,
the one might readily be mistaken for the other.

We were surprised to find no account of the geology of this
district in any of our books, Murray and Wilkinson pass it in
silence ; and writers of travels — one or two of whom notice
only the " pyramidal " shape of the hills — are for the most part
content to do likewise. None seem to have observed their
obvious volcanic origin.

Thanks to a light breeze that sprang up in the afternoon,
we were able to hoist our big sail again, and to relieve the men
from tracking. Thus we glided past the ruins of Maharrakeh,
which, seen from the river, looked like a Greek portico set in a
hollow waste of burning desert. Next came Wady Sabooah, a
temple half buried in sand, near which we met a tiny dahabeeyah,
manned by two Nubians and flying the star and crescent. A
shabby Government Inspector, in European dress and a fez, lay
smoking on a mat outside his cabin door ; while from a spar
overhead there hung a mighty crocodile. This monster was of
a greenish brown colour, and measured at least sixteen feet
from head to tail. His jaws yawned ; and one fat and flabby
arm and ponderous paw swung with the motion of the boat,
looking horribly human.

The Painter, with an eye to foregrounds, made a bid for
him on the spot ; but the shabby Inspector was not to be
moved by considerations of gain. He preferred his crocodile
to infidel gold, and scarcely deigned even to reply to the offer.

Seen in the half-light of a tropical afterglow — the purple
mountains coming down in detached masses to the water's edge
on the one side ; the desert with its volcanic peaks yet rosy
upon the other — we thought the approach to Korosko more
picturesque than anything we had yet seen south of the

PHIL^ TO KOROSKO.

243

Cataract. As the dusk deepened, the moon rose ; and the
palms that had just room to grow between the mountains and
the river turned from bronze to silver. It was half-twilight,
half-moonlight, by the time we reached the mooring-place where
Talhamy, who had been sent forward in the small boat half an
hour ago, jumped on board laden with a packet of letters, and
a sheaf of newspapers. For here, where the great caravan-route
leads off across the desert to Khartum, we touched the first
Nubian post-ofifice. It was only ten days since we had received
our last budget at Assuan ; but it seemed like ten weeks.

NUBIAN JBWBLLEEY.

CHAPTER XIV.

KOROSKO TO ABOU SIMBEL.

It so happened that we arrived at Korosko on the eve
of El -'Id el-Kebir, or the anniversary of the Sacrifice of
Abraham ; when, according to the Moslem version, Ishmael
was the intended victim, and a ram the substituted offering.
Now El -'Id el-Kebir, being one of the great Feasts of the
Mohammedan Kalendar, is a day of gifts and good wishes.
The rich visit their friends and distribute meat to the poor;
and every true believer goes to the mosque to say his prayers
in the morning. So, instead of starting as usual at sunrise,
we treated our sailors to a sheep, and waited till past noon,
that they might make holiday.

They began the day by trooping off to the village mosque
in all the glory of new blue blouses, spotless turbans, and
scarlet leather slippers ; then loitered about till dinner-time,
when the said sheep, stewed with lentils and garlic, brought
the festivities to an end. It was a thin and ancient beast,
and must have been horribly tough ; but an epicure might
have envied the child-like enjoyment with which our honest
fellows squatted, cross-legged and happy, round the smoking
cauldron ; chattering, laughing, feasting ; dipping their fingers
in the common mess ; washing the whole down with long
draughts of Nile water ; and finishing off with a hubble-bubble
passed from lip to lip, and a mouthful of muddy coffee. By
a little after midday they had put off their finery, harnessed
themselves to the tow-rope, and set to work to haul us through
the rocky shoals which here impede the current.

KOROSKO TO ABOU SIM BEL. 245

From Korosko to Derr, the actual distance is about eleven
miles and a half; but what with obstructions in the bed of the
river, and what with a wind that would have been favourable
but for another great bend which the Nile takes towards the
east, those eleven miles and a half cost us the best part of
two days' hard tracking.

Landing from time to time when the boat was close in
shore, we found the order of planting everywhere the same,
lupins and lentils on the slope against the water-line ; an
uninterrupted grove of palms on the edge of the bank ; in the
space beyond, fields of cotton and young corn ; and then the
desert. The arable soil was divided off, as usual, by hundreds
of water channels ; and seemed to be excellently farmed as
well as abundantly irrigated. Not a weed was to be seen ;
not an inch of soil appeared to be wasted. In odd corners
where there was room for nothing else, cucumbers and vegetable-
marrows flourished and bore fruit. Nowhere had we seen
castor-berries so large, cotton-pods so full, or palms so lofty.

Here also, for the first time out of Egypt, we observed
among the bushes a few hoopoes and other small birds ; and
on a sand-slope down by the river, a group of wild -ducks.
We — that is to say, one of the M. B.'s and the Writer — had
wandered off that way in search of crocodiles. The two
dahabeeyahs, each with its file of trackers, were slowly labour-
ing up against the current about a mile away. All was
intensely hot, and intensely silent. We had walked far, and
had seen no crocodile. What we should have done if we had
met one, I am not prepared to say. Perhaps we should have
run away. At all events, we were just about to turn back
when we caught sight of the ducks sunning themselves, half-
asleep, on the brink of a tiny pool about an eighth of a mile
away.

Creeping cautiously under the bank, we contrived to get
within a few yards of them. They were four — a drake, a
duck, and two young ones — exquisitely feathered, and as
small as teal. The parent-birds could scarcely have measured
more than eight inches from head to tail. All alike had
chestnut coloured heads with a narrow buff stripe down the
middle, like a parting ; maroon backs ; wing -feathers maroon

246 KOROSKO TO ABOU SIMBEL.

and grey ; and tails tipped with buff. They were so pretty,
and the little family party was so complete, that the Writer
could not help secretly rejoicing that Alfred and his gun were
safe on board the Bagstones.

High above the Libyan bank on the sloping verge of the
desert, stands, half-drowned in sand, the little Temple of
Amada. Seeing it from the opposite side while duck-hunting
in the morning, I had taken it for one of the many stone
shelters erected by Mohammed Ali for the accommodation of
cattle levied annually in the Sudan. It proved, however, to be
a temple, small but massive ; built with squared blocks of sand-
stone ; and dating back to the very old times of the Usurtesens
and Thothmes. It consists of a portico, a transverse atrium,
and three small chambers. The pillars of the portico are
mere square piers. The rooms are small and low. The roof,
constructed of oblong blocks, is flat from end to end. As an
architectural structure it is in fact but a few degrees removed
from Stonehenge.

A shed without, this little temple is, however, a cameo
within. Nowhere, save in the tomb of Ti, had we seen bas-
reliefs so delicately modelled, so rich in colour. Here, as
elsewhere, the walls are covered with groups of Kings and
Gods and hieroglyphic texts. The figures are slender and
animated. The head-dresses, jewellery, and patterned robes
are elaborately drawn and painted. Every head looks like a
portrait ; every hieroglyphic form is a study in miniature.

Apart from its exquisite finish, the wall-sculpture of Amada
has, however, nothing in common with the wall-sculpture of
the Ancient Empire. It belongs to the period of Egyptian
Renaissance ; and, though inferior in power and naturalness
to the work of the elder school, it marks just that moment of
special development when the art of modelling in low relief
had touched the highest level to which it ever again attained.
That highest level belongs to the reigns of Thothmes the
Second and Thothmes the Third ; just as the perfect era in
architecture belongs to the reigns of Seti the First and Rameses
the Second. It is for this reason that Amada is so precious.
It registers an epoch in the history of the art, and gives us
the best of that epoch in the hour of its zenith. The sculptor

KOROSKO TO ABOU SIM BEL. 247

is here seen to be working within bounds already prescribed ;
yet within those bounds he still enjoys a certain liberty. His
art, though largely conventionalised, is not yet stereotyped.
His sense of beauty still finds expression. There is, in short,
a grace and sweetness about the bas-relief designs of Amada
for which one looks in vain to the storied walls of Karnak.

The chambers are half- choked with sand, and we had
to crawl into the sanctuary upon our hands and knees. A
long inscription at the upper end records how Amenhotep the
Second, returning from his first campaip^n against the Ruten,
slew seven kings with his own hand ; six of whom were
gibbeted upon the lamparts of Thebes, while the body of the
seventh was sent to Ethiopia by water and suspended on the
outer wall of the city of Napata,^ " in order that the negroes
might behold the victories of the Pharaoh in all the lands of
the world."

In the darkest corner of the atrium we observed a curious
tableau representing the King embraced by a Goddess. He
holds a short straight sword in his right hand, and the crux
ansata in his left. On his head he wears the khepersh, or
war-helmet ; a kind of a blue mitre studded with gold stars and
ornamented with the royal asp. The Goddess clasps him
lovingly about the neck, and bends her lips to his. The artist
has given her the yellow complexion conventionally ascribed
to women ; but her saucy mouth and nez retrousse are distinctly
European. Dressed in the fashion of the nineteenth century,
she might have served Leech as a model for his Girl of the
Period.

The sand has drifted so high at the back of the Temple,
that one steps upon the roof as upon a terrace only just raised
above the level of the desert. Soon that level will be equal ;
and if nothing is done to rescue it within the next generation
or two, the whole building will become engulfed, and its very
site be forgotten.

^ A city of Ethiopia, identified with the ruins at Gebel Barkal. The
worship of Amen was established at Napata towards the end of the XXth
Dynasty, and it was from the priests of Thebes who settled at that time
in Napata, that the Ethiopian conquerors of Egypt (XXIIIrd Dynasty) were
descended.

248 k:oROSko to Abou si MB el.

The view from the roof, looking back towards Korosko
and forward towards Derr, is one of the finest — perhaps quite
the finest — in Nubia. The Nile curves grandly through the
foreground. The palm-woods of Derr are green in the distance.
The mountain region which we have just traversed ranges, a
vast crescent of multitudinous peaks, round two-thirds of the
horizon. Ridge beyond ridge, chain beyond chain, flushing
crimson in light and deepening through every tint of amethyst
and purple in shadow, those innumerable summits fade into
tenderest blue upon the horizon. As the sun sets, they seem
to glow ; to become incandescent ; to be touched with flame —
as in the old time when every crater was a fount of fire.

Struggling next morning through a maze of sand-banks, we
reached Derr soon after breakfast. This town — the Nubian
capital — lies a little lower than the level of the bank, so that
only a few mud walls are visible from the river. Having
learned by this time that a capital town is but a bigger village,
containing perhaps a mosque and a market-place, we were not
disappointed by the unimposing aspect of the Nubian metropolis.

Great, however, was our surprise when, instead of the usual
clamorous crowd screaming, pushing, scrambling, and bothering
for backsheesh, we found the landing-place deserted. Two or
three native boats lay up under the bank, empty. There was
literally not a soul in sight. L. and the Little Lady, eager to
buy some of the basket-work for which the place is famous,
looked blank. Talhamy, anxious to lay in a store of fresh
eggs and vegetables, looked blanker.

We landed. Before us lay an open space, at the farther
end of which, facing the river, stood the Governor's palace ; the
said palace being a magnified mud hut, with a frieze of baked
bricks round the top, and an imposing stone doorway. In
this doorway, according to immemorial usage, the great man
gives audience. We saw him — a mere youth, apparently —
puffing away at a long chibouque, in the midst of a little group
of greybeard elders. They looked at us gravely, immovably ;
like smoking automata. One longed to go up and ask them if
they were all transformed to black granite from the waists to
the feet, gnd if the inhabitants of Derr had been changed into
blue stones.

KOROSKO TO ABOU S 1MB EL. 249

Still bent on buying baskets, if baskets were to be bought,
— bent also on finding out the whereabouts of a certain rock-
cut temple which our books told us to look for at the back of
the town, we turned aside into a straggling street leading
towards the desert. The houses looked better built than
usual ; some pains having evidently been bestowed in smooth-
ing the surface of the mud, and ornamenting the doorways
with fragments of coloured pottery. A cracked willow-pattern
dinner-plate set like a fanlight over one, and a white soup-plate
over another, came doubtless from the canteen of some English
dahabeeyah, and were the pride of their possessors. Looking
from end to end of this street — and it was a tolerably long
one, with the Nile at one end, and the desert at the other — we
saw no sign or shadow of moving creature. Only one young
woman, hearing strange voices talking a strange tongue, peeped
out suddenly from a half-opened door as we went by ; then,
seeing me look at the baby in her arms (which was hideous
and had sore eyes) drew her veil across its face, and darted
back again. She thought I coveted her treasure, and she
dreaded the Evil Eye.

All at once we heard a sound like the far-off quivering cry
of many owls. It shrilled — swelled — wavered — dropped —
then died away, like the moaning of the wind at sea. We held
our breath and listened. We had never heard anything so wild
and plaintive. Then suddenly, through an opening between
the houses, we saw a great crowd on a space of rising ground
about a quarter of a mile away. This crowd consisted of men
only — a close, turbaned mass some three or four hundred in
number ; all standing quite still and silent ; all looking 'n\ the
same direction.

Hurrying on to the desert, we saw the strange sight at
which they were looking.

The scene was a barren sandslope hemmed in between the
town and the cliffs, and dotted over with graves. The actors
were all women. Huddled together under a long wall some
few hundred yards away, bareheaded, and exposed to the blaze
of the morning sun, they outnumbered the men by a full third.
Some were sitting, some standing ; while in their midst, press-
ing round a young woman who seemed to act as leader, there

250 KOROSKO TO ABOU SI MB EL.

swayed and circled and shuffled a compact phalanx of dancers.
Upon this young woman the eyes of all were turned. A black
Cassandra, she rocked her body from side to side, clapped her
hands above her head, and poured forth a wild declamatory
chant, which the rest echoed. This chant seemed to be divided
into strophes, at the end of each of which she paused, beat her
breast, and broke into that terrible wail that we had heard just
now from a distance.

Her brother, it seemed, had died last night ; and we were
witnessing his funeral.

The actual interment was over by the time we reached the
spot ; but four men were still busy filling the grave with sand,
which they scraped up, a bowlful at a time, and stamped down
with their naked feet.

The deceased being unmarried, his sister led the choir of
mourners. She was a tall, gaunt young woman of the plainest
Nubian type, with high cheekbones, eyes slanting upwards at
the corners, and an enormous mouth full of glittering teeth.
On her head she wore a white cloth smeared with dust. Her
companions were distinguished by a narrow white fillet, bound
about the brow, and tied with two long ends behind. They
had hidden their necklaces and bracelets, and wore trailing
robes and shawls, and loose trousers of black or blue calico.

We stood for a long time watching their uncouth dance.
None of the women seemed to notice us ; but the men made
way civilly and gravely, letting us pass to the front, that we
might get a better view of the ceremony.

By and by an old woman rose slowly from the midst of
those who were sitting, and moved with tottering uncertain
steps towards a higher point of ground, a little apart from the
crowd. There was a movement of compassion among the men ;
one of whom turned to the Writer and said gently : " His
mother."

She was a small, feeble old woman, very poorly clad. Her
hands and arms were like the hands and arms of a mummy,
and her withered black face looked ghastly under its mask of
dust. For a few moments, swaying her body slowly to and
fro, she watched the gravediggers stamping down the sand ;
then stretched out her arms, and broke into a torrent of lamen-

KOROSKO TO ABOV SI MB EL. 251

tations. The dialect of Derr ^ is strange and barbarous ; but
we felt as if we understood every word she uttered. Presently
the tears began to make channels down her cheeks — her voice
became choked with sobs — and falling down in a sort of help-
less heap, like a broken-hearted dog, she lay with her face to
the ground, and there stayed.

Meanwhile, the sand being now filled in and mounded up,
the men betook themselves to a place where the rock had given
way, and selected a couple of big stones from the debris.
These they placed at the head and foot of the grave ; and all
was done.

Instantly — perhaps at an appointed signal, though we saw
none given — the wailing ceased ; the women rose ; every tongue
was loosened ; and the whole became a moving, animated, noisy
throng dispersing in a dozen different directions.

We turned away with the rest, the Writer and the Painter
rambling off in search of the temple, while the other three
devoted themselves to the pursuit of baskets and native jewel-
lery. When we looked back presently, the crowd was gone ;
but the desolate mother still lay motionless in the dust.

It chanced that we witnessed many funerals in Nubia ; so
many that one sometimes felt inclined to doubt whether the
Governor of Assuan had not reported over-favourably of the
health of the province. The ceremonial, with its dancing and
chanting, was always much the same ; always barbaric, and in
the highest degree artificial. One would like to know how
much of it is derived from purely African sources, and how
much from ancient Egyptian tradition. The dance is most
probably Ethiopian. Lepsius, travelling through the Sudan in
A.D. 1 844,^ saw something of the kind at a funeral in Wed
Medineh, about half-way between Sennaar and Khartum. The
white fillet worn by the choir of mourners is, on the other hand,
distinctly Egyptian. We afterwards saw it represented in
paintings of funeral processions on the walls of several tombs

1 The men hereabout can nearly all speak Arabic ; but the women of
Nubia know only the Kensee and Berberee tongues, the first of which is
spoken as far as Korosko.

2 Lepsius's Letters from Egypt ^ Ethiopia, etc.. Letter xviii. p. 184.
Bohn's ed. A.D. 1853.

252 KOROSKO TO ABOtJ SIMBEL.

at Thebes/ where the wailing women are seen to be gathering
up the dust in their hands and casting it upon their heads, just
as they do now. As for the wail — beginning high, and descend-
ing through a scale divided, not by semi-tones, but thirds of
tones, to a final note about an octave and a half lower than
that from which it started — it probably echoes to this day the
very pitch and rhythm of the wail that followed the Pharaohs
to their sepulchres in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings.
Like the zaghareet, or joy-cry, which every mother teaches to
her little girls, and which, it is said, can only be acquired in
very early youth, it has been handed down from generation to
generation through an untold succession of ages. The song to
which the Fellah works his shaduf, and the monotonous chant
of the sakkieh-driver, have perhaps as remote an origin. But
of all old, mournful, human sounds, the death -wail that we
heard at Derr is perhaps one of the very oldest — certainly the
most mournful.

The Temple here, dating from the reign of Rameses II, is
of rude design and indifferent execution. Partly constructed,
partly excavated, it is approached by a forecourt, the roof of
which was supported by eight square columns. Of these
columns only the bases remain. Four massive piers against
which once stood four colossi, upheld the roof of the portico
and gave admission by three entrances to the rock-cut chambers
beyond. That portico is now roofless. Nothing is left of the
colossi but their feet. All is ruin ; and ruin without beauty.

Seen from within, however, the place is not without a kind
of gloomy grandeur. Two rows of square columns, three at each
side, divide the large hall into a nave and two aisles. This hall
is about forty feet square, and the pillars have been left standing
in the living rock, like those in the early tombs at Shat. The
daylight, half blocked out by the fallen portico, is pleasantly
subdued, and finds its way dimly to the sanctuary at the farther
end. The sculptures of the interior, though much damaged,
are less defaced than those of the outer court. Walls, pillars,
doorways, are covered with bas-reliefs. The King and Ptah,

^ See the interesting account of funereal rites and ceremonies in Sir
G, Wilkinson's Ande?tt Egyptians, vol. ii. ch. x., Lond, 1871. Also wood-
cuts Nos. 493 and 494 in the same chapter of the same work.

KOROSKO TO ABOU SIM BEL.

253

the King and Ra, the King and Amen, stand face to face,
hand in hand, on each of the four sides of every column.
Scenes of worship, of slaughter, of anointing, cover the walls ;
and the blank spaces are filled in as usual with hieroglyphic
inscriptions. Among these Champollion discovered an imper-
fect list of the sons and daughters of Rameses the Second.

TEMPLE OF DERR, NUBIA.

Four gods once sat enthroned at the upper end of the sanctuary ;
but they have shared the fate of the colossi outside, and only
their feet remain. The wall sculptures of this dark little
chamber are, however, better preserved, and better worth pre-
servation, than those of the hall. A procession of priests,
bearing on their shoulders the bari, or sacred boat, is quite
unharmed ; and even the colour is yet fresh upon a full-length
figure of Hathor close by.

But more interesting than all these — more interesting
because more rare — is a sculptured palm-tree against which the
king leans while making an offering to Amen-Ra. The trunk
is given with elaborate truthfulness ; and the branches, though

254 KOROSKO TO ABOU SIM BEL.

formalised, are correct and graceful in curvature. The tree is
but an accessory. It may have been introduced with reference
to the date-harvests which are the wealth of the district ; but
it has no kind of sacred significance, and is noticeable only for
the naturalness of the treatment. Such naturalness is unusual
in the art of this period, when the conventional persea, and the
equally conventional lotus are almost the only vegetable forms
which appear on the walls of the Temples. I can recall, indeed,
but one similar instance in the bas-relief sculpture of the New
Empire — namely, the bent, broken, and waving bulrushes in
the great lion -hunting scene at Medinet Habu, which are
admirably free, and studied apparently from nature.

Coming out, we looked in vain along the courtyard walls
for the battle-scene in which Champollion was yet able to trace
the famous fighting lion of Rameses the Second, with the legend
describing him as " the Servant of His Majesty rending his foes
in pieces." But that was forty-five years ago. Now it is with
difficulty that one detects a few vague outlines of chariot-wheels
and horses.

There are some rock-cut tombs in the face of the cliffs close
by. The Painter explored them while the Writer sketched the
interior of the Temple ; but he reported of them as mere
sepulchres, unpainted and unsculptured.

The rocks, the sands, the sky, were at a white heat when
we again turned our faces towards the river. Where there had
so lately been a great multitude there was now not a soul.
The palms nodded ; the pigeons dozed ; the mud town slept in
the sun. Even the mother had gone from her place of weeping,
and left her dead to the silence of the desert.

We went and looked at his grave. The fresh-turned sand
was only a little darker than the rest, and but for the trampled
foot-marks round about, we should scarcely have been able to
distinguish the new mound from the old ones. All were alike
nameless. Some, more cared for than the rest, were bordered
with large stones and filled in with variegated pebbles. One
or two were fenced about with a mud wall. All had a bowl of
baked clay at the head. Wherever we saw a burial-ground in
Nubia, we saw these bowls upon the graves. The mourners,
they told us, mourn here for forty days ; during which time

KOROSKO TO ABQU SIM BEL. 255

they come every Friday and fill the bowl with fresh water, that
the birds may drink from it. The bowls on the other graves
were dry and full of sand ; but the new bowl was brimming
full, and the water in it was hot to the touch.

We found L. and the Happy Couple standing at bay with
their backs against a big lebbich tree, surrounded by an immense
crowd and far from comfortable. Bent on "bazaaring," they
had probably shown themselves too ready to buy ; so bringing
the whole population, with all the mats, baskets, nose-rings,
finger-rings, necklaces and bracelets in the place, about their
ears. Seeing the straits they were in, we ran to the dahabeeyah
and despatched three or four sailors to the rescue, who brought
them off in triumph.

Even in Egypt, it does not answer, as a rule, to go about
on shore without an escort. The people are apt to be
importunate, and can with difficulty be kept at a pleasant
distance. But in Nubia, where the traveller's life was scarcely
safe fifty years ago, unprotected Ingleezeh are pretty certain to
be disagreeably mobbed. The natives, in truth, are still mere
savages mi fond — the old war-paint being but half disguised
under a thin veneer of Mohammedanism.

Some of the women who followed our friends to the boat,
though in complexion as black as the rest, had light blue eyes
and frizzy red hair, the effect of which was indescribably
frightful. Both here and at Ibrim there are many of these
" fair " families, who claim to be descended from Bosnian fathers
stationed in Nubia at the time of the conquest of Sultan Selim
in A.D. 1517. They are immensely proud of their alien blood,
and think themselves quite beautiful.

All hands being safe on board, we pushed off at once,
leaving about a couple of hundred disconsolate dealers on the
bank. A long-drawn howl of disappointment followed in our
wake. Those who had sold, and those who had not sold, were
alike wronged, ruined, and betrayed. One woman tore wildly
along the bank, shrieking and beating her breast. Foremost
among the sellers, she had parted from her gold brow-pendant
for a good price ; but was inconsolable now for the loss of it.

It often happened that those who had been most eager to
trade, were readiest to repent of their bargains. Even so, how-

256 KOROSKO TO ABOU SI MB EL.

ever, their cupidity outweighed their love of finery. Movexf.
once or twice by the lamentations of some dark damsel who
had sold her necklace at a handsome profit, we offered to annul
the purchase. But it invariably proved that, despite her tears,
she preferred to keep the money.

The palms of Derr and of the rich district beyond, were the
finest we saw throughout the journey. Straight and strong and
magnificently plumed, they rose to an average height of seventy
or eighty feet. These superb plantations supply all Egypt with
saplings, and contribute a heavy tax to the revenue. The fruit,
sun-dried and shrivelled, is also sent northwards in large
quantities.

The trees are cultivated with strenuous industry by the
natives, and owe as much of their perfection to laborious irriga-
tion as to climate. The foot of each separate palm is surrounded
by a circular trench into which the water is conducted by a
small channel about fourteen inches in width. Every palm-grove
stands in a network of these artificial runlets. The reservoir
from which they are supplied is filled by means of a Sakkieh,
or water-wheel — a primitive and picturesque machine consisting
of two wheels, the one set vertically to the river and slung with
a chain of pots ; the other a horizontal cog turned sometimes
by a camel, but more frequently in Nubia by a buffalo. The
pots (which go down empty, dip under the water, and come up
full) feed a sloping trough which in some places supplies a
reservoir, and in others communicates at once with the irrigating
channels. These sakkiehs are kept perpetually going ; and are
set so close just above Derr, that the Writer counted a line of
fifteen within the space of a single mile. There were probably
quite as many on the opposite bank.

The sakkiehs creak atrociously ; and their creaking ranges
over an unlimited gamut. From morn till dewy eve, from
dewy eve till morn, they squeak, they squeal, they grind, they
groan, they croak. Heard after dark, sakkieh answering to
sakkieh, their melancholy chorus makes night hideous. To
sleep through it is impossible. Being obliged to moor a few
miles beyond Derr, and having lain awake half the night, we
offered a sakkieh-driver a couple of dollars if he would let his
wheel rest till morning. But time and water are more precious

KOROSKO TO ABOU SIM BEL.

257

than even dollars at this season ; and the man refused. All
we could do, therefore, was to punt into the middle of the river,
and lie off at a point as nearly as possible equidistant from our
two nearest enemies.

SAKKIEH, OR WATER-WHEEL.

The native dearly loves the tree which costs him so much
labour, and thinks it the chef d'ceuvre of creation. When Allah
made the first man, says an Arab legend, he found he had a
little clay to spare ; so with that he made the palm. And to
the poor Nubian, at all events, the gifts of the palm are almost
divine ; supplying food for his children, thatch for his hovel,
timber for his water-wheel, ropes, matting, cups, bowls, and
even the strong drink forbidden by the Prophet. The date-

2S8 KOROSKO TO ABOU SIM BEL.

wine is yellowish-white, like whisky. It is not a wine, however,
but a spirit ; coarse, fiery, and unpalatable.

Certain trees — as for instance the perky little pine of the
German wald — are apt to become monotonous ; but one never
wearies of the palm. Whether taken singly or in masses, it is
always graceful, always suggestive. To the sketcher on the
Nile, it is simply invaluable. It breaks the long parallels of
river and bank, and composes with the stern lines of Egyptian
arcfiitecture as no other tree in the world could do.

"Subjects indeed!" said once upon a time an eminent
artist to the present Writer ; " fiddlesticks about subjects !
Your true painter can make a picture out of a post and a
puddle."

Substitute a palm, however, for a post ; combine it with
anything that comes first — a camel, a shadoof, a woman with
a water-jar upon her head — and your picture stands before you
ready made.

Nothing more surprised me at first than the colour of the
palm -frond, which painters of eastern landscape are wont to
depict of a hard, bluish tint, like the colour of a yucca leaf
Its true shade is a tender, bloomy, sea-green grey ; difficult
enough to match, but in most exquisite harmony with the glow
of the sky and the gold of the desert.

The palm - groves kept us company for many a mile,
backed on the Arabian side by long level ranges of sandstone
cliffs horizontally stratified, like those of the Thebaid. We
now scarcely ever saw a village — only palms, and sakkiehs, and
sandbanks in the river. The villages were there, but invisible ;
being built on the verge of the desert. Arable land is too
valuable in Nubia for either the living to dwell upon it or
the dead to be buried in it.

At Ibrim — a sort of ruined Ehrenbreitstein on the top of
a grand precipice overhanging the river — we touched for only a
few minutes, in order to buy a very small shaggy sheep which
had been brought down to the landing-place for sale. But for
the breeze that happened just then to be blowing, we should
have liked to climb the rock, and see the view and the ruins —
which are part modern, part Turkish, part Roman, and little, if
at all, Egyptian.

KOROSKO TO ABOU SIM BEL. 259

There are also some sculptured and painted grottoes to be
seen in the southern face of the mountain. They are, however,
too difficult of access to be attempted by ladies. Alfred, who
went ashore after quail, was drawn up to them by ropes ; but
found them so much defaced as to be scarcely worth the
trouble of a visit.

We were now only thirty-four miles from Abou Simbel ;
but making slow progress, and impatiently counting every foot
of the way. The heat at times was great ; frequent and fitful
spells of Khamsin wind alternating with a hot calm that tried
the trackers sorely. Still we pushed forward, a few miles at a
time, till by and by the flat-topped cliffs dropped out of sight
and were again succeeded by volcanic peaks, some of which
looked loftier than any of those about Dakkeh or Korosko.

Then the palms ceased, and the belt of cultivated land
narrowed to a thread of green between the rocks and the
water's edge ; and at last there came an evening when we
only wanted breeze enough to double two or three more bends
in the river.

"Is it to be Abou Simbel to-night?" we asked, for the
twentieth time before going down to dinner.

. To which Reis Hassan replied, " Aiwah " (certainly).

But the pilot shook his head, and added, " Bukra " (to-
morrow).

When we came up again, the moon had risen, but the
breeze had dropped. Still we moved, impelled by a breath so
faint that one could scarcely feel it. Presently even this failed.
The sail collapsed ; the pilot steered for the bank ; the captain
gave the word to go aloft — when a sudden puff from the north
changed our fortunes, and sent us out again with a well-filled
sail into the middle of the river.

None of us, I think, will be likely to forget the sustained
excitement of the next three hours. As the moon climbed
higher, a light more mysterious and unreal than the light of
day filled and overflowed the wide expanse of river and desert.
We could see the mountains of Abou Simbel standing as it
seemed across our path, in the far distance — a lower one first ;
then a larger ; then a series of receding heights, all close
together, yet all distinctly separate.

26o KOROSKO TO ABOU SIM BEL.

That large one — the mountain of the Great Temple — held
us like a spell. For a long time it looked a mere mountain
like the rest. By and by, however, we fancied we detected a
something — a shadow — such a shadow as might be cast by a
gigantic buttress. Next appeared a black speck no bigger
than a porthole. We knew that this black speck must be the
doorway. We knew that the great statues were there, though
not yet visible ; and that we must soon see them.

For our sailors, meanwhile, there was the excitement of
a chase. The Bagstones and three other dahabeeyahs were
coming up behind us in the path of the moonlight. Their
galley fires glowed like beacons on the water ; the nearest
about a mile away, the last a spark in the distance. We were
not in the mood to care much for racing to-night ; but we were
anxious to keep our lead and be first at the mooring-place.

To run upon a sandbank at such a moment was like being
plunged suddenly into cold water. Our sail flapped furiously.
The men rushed to the punting poles. Four jumped over-
board, and shoved with all the might of their shoulders. By
the time we got off, however, the other boats had crept up
half a mile nearer ; and we had hard work to keep them from
pressing closer on our heels.

At length the last corner was rounded, and the Great
Temple stood straight before us. The fagade, sunk in the
mountain-side like a huge picture in a mighty frame, was now
quite plain to see. The black speck was no longer a porthole,
but a lofty doorway.

Last of all, though it was night and they were still not
much less than a mile away, the four colossi came out, ghost-
like, vague, and shadowy, in the enchanted moonlight. Even
as we watched them, they seemed to grow — to dilate — to be
moving towards us out of the silvery distance.

It was drawing on towards midnight when the Philae at
ength ran in close under the Great Temple. Content with
what they had seen from the river, the rest of the party then
went soberly to bed ; but the Painter and the Writer had no
patience to wait till morning. Almost before the mooring-rope
could be made fast, they had jumped ashore and begun climbing
the bank.

KOROSKO TO ABOU SIM BEL. 261

They went and stood at the feet of the colossi, and on the
threshold of that vast portal beyond which was darkness. The
great statues towered above their heads. The river glittered
like steel in the far distance. There was a keen silence in the
air ; and towards the east the Southern Cross was rising. To
the strangers who stood talking there with bated breath, the
time, the place, even the sound of their own voices, seemed
unreal. They felt as if the whole scene must fade with the
moonlight, and vanish before morning.

CHAPTER XV.

RAMESES THE GREAT.

1 HE central figure of Egyptian history has always been,
probably always will be, Rameses the Second. He holds this
place partly by right, partly by accident. He was born to
greatness ; he achieved greatness ; and he had borrowed great-
ness thrust upon him. It was his singular destiny not only
to be made a posthumous usurper of glory, but to be forgotten
by his own name and remembered in a variety of aliases. As
Sesoosis, as Osymandias, as Sesostris, he became credited in
course of time with all the deeds of all the heroes of the new
Empire, beginning with Thothmes HI, who preceded him by
300 years, and ending with Sheshonk, the captor of Jerusalem,
who lived four centuries after him. Modern science, however,
has repaired this injustice ; and, while disclosing the long-lost
names of a brilliant succession of sovereigns, has enabled us to
ascribe to each the honours which are his due. We know now
that some of these were greater conquerors than Rameses II.
We suspect that some were better rulers. Yet the popular
hero keeps his ground. What he has lost by interpretation on
the one hand, he has gained by interpretation on the other ;
and the beau sabreur of the Third Sallier Papyrus remains to
this day the representative Pharaoh of a line of monarchs
whose history covers a space of fifty centuries, and whose
frontiers reached at one time from Mesopotamia to the ends of
the Soudan.

The interest that one takes in Rameses II begins at
Memphis, and goes on increasing all the way up the river.

RAMESES THE GREAT.

263

It is a purely living, a purely personal interest ; such as one feels
in Athens for Pericles, or in Florence for Lorenzo the Magnifi-
cent. Other Pharaohs but languidly affect the imagination.
Thothmes and Amenhotep are to us as Darius or Artaxerxes
— shadows that come and go in the distance. But with the
second Rameses we are on terms of
respectful intimacy. We seem to
know the man — to feel his presence
— to hear his name in the air. His
features are as familiar to us as those
of Henry the Eighth or Louis the
Fourteenth. His cartouches meet us
at every turn. Even to those who
do not read the hieroglyphic charac-
ter, those well-known signs convey,
by sheer force of association, the
name and style ^ of Rameses, beloved of Amen.

This being so, the traveller is ill equipped who goes through
Egypt without something more than a mere guide-book know-
ledge of Rameses H. He is, as it were, content to read the
Argument and miss the Poem. In the desolation of Memphis,
in the shattered splendour of Thebes, he sees only the ordinary
pathos of ordinary ruins. As for Abou Simbel, the most
stupendous historical record ever transmitted from the past
to the present, it tells him a but half-intelligible story. Hold-
ing to the merest thread of explanation, he wanders from hall
to hall, lacking altogether that potent charm of foregone
association which no Murray can furnish. Your average
Frenchman straying helplessly through Westminster Abbey
under the conduct of the verger has about as vague a concep-
tion of the historical import of the things he sees.

CARTOUCHES OF RAMESES THE GREAT.

^ Rendered thus into Latin by M. Chabas : Sol dominus veritatis
electus a Sole, Sol genuit euin; avians Ammotiem. Anglice — Sun Lord
of Truth, Chosen of the Sun, Son of the Sun, Ammon-loving. The follow-
ing is an extract translation of the hieroglyphs : —

yw^A O

\ l^\

Ra - user ■ iMa

Setp -

mes

- Sll

Aler • A men.

%^ strong (in) Truth

Approved

Sop

(of)

Beloved (of) Ametii

264 RAMESES THE GREAT.

What is true of the traveller is equally true of those who
take their Nile vicariously "in connection with Mudie." If
they are to understand any description of Abou Simbel, they
must first know something about Rameses II. Let us then,
while the Philae lies moored in the shadow of the rock of
Abshek/ review, as summarily as may be, the leading facts of
this important reign ; such facts, that is to say, as are recorded
in inscriptions, papyri, and other contemporary monuments.

Rameses the Second ^ was the son of Seti I, the second
Pharaoh of the XlXth Dynasty, and of a certain Princess
Tuaa, described on the monuments as " royal wife, royal mother,
and heiress and sharer of the throne." She is supposed to
have been of the ancient royal line of the preceding dynasty,
and so to have had, perhaps, a better right than her husband
to the double crown of Egypt. Through her, at all events,
Rameses II seems to have been in some sense born a king,^
equal in rank, if not in power, with his father ; his rights,

1 Absliek : — The hieroglyphic name of Abou Simbel. Gr. Aboccis.

2 In the present state of Egyptian chronology, it is hazardous to assign
even an approximate date to events which happened before the conquest of
Cambyses. The Egyptians, in fact, had no chronology in the strict
sense of the word. Being without any fixed point of departure, such as
the birth of Christ, they counted the events of each reign from the accession
of the sovereign. Under such a system, error and confusion were inevitable.
To say when Rameses II was born and when he died is impossible. The
very century in which he flourished is uncertain. Mariette, taking the
historical lists of Manetho for his basis, supposes the XlXth Dynasty to
have occupied the interval comprised within B.C. 1462 and 1288 ; accord-
ing to which computation (allowing 57 years for the rfeigns of Rameses I
and Seti I) the reign of Rameses II would date from B.C. 1405. Brugsch
gives him from B.C. 1407 to B.C. 1341 ; and Lepsius places his reign in
the sixty-six years lying between B.C. 1388 and B.C. 1322 ; these calcula-
tions being both made before the discovery of the stela of Abydos. Bunsen
dates his accession from B.C. 1352.. Between the highest and the lowest
of these calculations there is, as shown by the following table, a difference
of 5 5 years : —

Rameses II began to reign B.C.

'^ [Brugsch ..... 1407

^ (-, J Mariette .: . . . . 1405

^ ■" 1 Lepsius 1388

^ [ Bunsen ..... I352

8 See chap. viii. footnote, p. 14Q.

R AMESES THE GREAT. 26^

moreover, were fully recognised by Seti, who accorded him
royal and divine honours from the hour of his birth, or, in the
language of the Egyptian historians, while he was "yet in the
Ggg." The great dedicatory inscription of the Temple of
Osiris at Abydos,^ relates how his father took the royal child
in his arms, when he was yet little more than an infant,
showed him to the people as their king, and caused him to be
invested by the great officers of the palace with the double
crown of the two lands. The same inscription states that he
was a general from his birth, and that as a nursling he
" commanded the body guard and the brigade of chariot-
fighters " ; but these titles must of course have been purely
honorary. At twelve years of age, he was formally associated
with his father upon the throne, and by the gradual retirement
of Seti I from the cares of active government, the co-royalty
of Rameses became, in the course of the next ten or fifteen
years, an undivided responsibility. He was probably about
thirty when his father died ; and it is from this time that the
years of his reign are dated. In other words, Rameses II, in
his official records, counts only from the period of his sole
reign, and the year of the death of Seti is the " year one " of
the monumental inscriptions of his son and successor. In the
second, fourth, and fifth years of his monarchy, he personally
conducted campaigns in Syria, more than one of the victories
then achieved being commemorated on the rock-cut tablets of
Nahr-el-Kelb near BeyrQt ; and that he was by this time recog-
nised as a mighty warrior is shown by the stela of Dakkeh,
which dates from the " third year," and celebrates him as
terrible in battle — " the bull powerful against Ethiopia, the
griffin furious against 1:he negroes, whose grip has put the
mountaineers to flight." The events of the campaign of his
" fifth year " (undertaken in order to reduce to obedience the
revolted tribes of Syria and Mesopotamia) are immortalised in
the poem of Pentaur.^ It was on this occasion that he fought his
famous single-handed fight, against overwhelming odds, in the
sight of both armies under the walls of Kadesh. Three years

^ See Essai sur P Inscription Dedicatoire du Temple d'Abydos et l(H
Jeutiesse de Sesotris. — G. Maspero, Paris, 1867.
2 See chap. viii. p. 139.

266 RAMESES THE GREAT.

later, he carried fire and sword into the land of Canaan, and
in his eleventh year, according to inscriptions yet extant upon
the ruined pylons of the Ramesseum at Thebes, he took,
among other strong places on sea and shore, the fortresses of
Ascalon and Jerusalem.

The next important record transports us to the twenty-first
year of his reign. Ten years have now gone by since the fall
of Jerusalem, during which time a fluctuating frontier warfare
has probably been carried on, to the exhaustion of both armies.
Khetasira, Prince of Kheta,^ sues for peace. An elaborate treaty
is thereupon framed, whereby the said Prince and " Rameses,
Chief of Rulers, who fixes his frontiers where he pleases," pledge
themselves to a strict offensive and defensive alliance, and to
the maintenance of good-will and brotherhood for ever. This
treaty, we are told, was engraved for the Khetan prince " upon
a tablet of silver adorned with the likeness of the figure of
Sutekh, the Great Ruler of Heaven ; " while for Rameses Mer-
Amen it was graven on a wall adjoining the Great Hall at
Karnak,^ where it remains to this day.

According to the last clause of this curious document, the
contracting parties enter also into an agreement to deliver up
to each other the political fugitives of both countries ; providing
at the same time for the personal safety of the offenders.
" Whosoever shall be so delivered up," says the treaty, " him-
self, his wives, his children, let him not be smitten to death ;
moreover, let him not suffer in his eyes, in his mouth, in
his feet ; moreover, let not any crime be set up against
him." ^ This is the earliest instance of an extradition treaty

1 i.e. Prince of the Hittites ; the Kheta being now identified with that
people.

2 This invaluable record is sculptured on a piece of wall built out,
apparently for the purpose, at right angles to the south wall of the Hypos-
tyle Hall at Karnak. The treaty faces to the west, and is situate about
half-way between the famous bas-relief of Sheshonk and his captives, and
the Karnak version of the poem of Pentaur. The former lies to the west
of the southern portal ; the latter to the east. The wall of the treaty juts
out about sixty feet to the east of the portal. This south wall and its
adjunct, a length of about 200 feet in all, is perhaps the most precious and
interesting piece of sculptured surface in the world.

' See Treaty of Peace between Rameses II and the Hittites., translated
by C. W. Goodwin, M.A. — RECORPS OF THE PAST, vol. iv. p. 25.

RAMESES THE GREAT. 267

upon record ; and it is chiefly remarkable as an illustration of
the clemency with which international law was at that time
administered.

Finally, the convention between the sovereigns is placed
under the joint protection of the gods of both countries :
" Sutekh of Kheta, Amen of Egypt, and all the thousand gods,
the gods male and female, the gods of the hills, of the rivers, of
the great sea, of the winds and the clouds, of the land of Kheta
and of the land of Egypt."

The peace now concluded would seem to have remained
unbroken throughout the rest of the long reign of Rameses the
Second. We hear, at all events, of no more wars ; and we
find the king married presently to a Khetan princess, who in
deference to the gods of her adopted country takes the official
name of Ma-at-iri-neferu-Ra, or " Contemplating the Beauties of
Ra." The names of two other queens — Nefer-t-ari and Ast-
ncfert — are also found upon the monuments.

These three were probably the only legitimate wives of
Rameses II, though he must also have been the lord of an
extensive hareem. His family, at all events, as recorded upon
the walls of the Temple at Wady Sabooah, amounted to no
less than 170 children, of whom 11 1 were princes. This may
have been a small family for a great king three thousand years
ago. It was but the other day, comparatively speaking, that
Lepsius saw and talked with old Hasan, Kashef of Derr — the
same petty ruler who gave so much trouble to Belzoni, Burck-
hardt, and other early travellers — and he, like a patriarch of
old, had in his day been the husband of sixty-four wives, and
the father of something like 200 children.

For forty-six years after the making of the Khetan treaty,
Rameses the Great lived at peace with his neighbours and
tributaries. The evening of his life was long and splendid. It
became his passion and his pride to found new cities, to raise
dykes, to dig canals, to build fortresses, to multiply statues,
obelisks, and inscriptions, and to erect the most gorgeous and
costly temples in which man ever worshipped. To the monu-
ments founded by his predecessors he made additions so magni-
ficent that they dwarfed the designs they were intended to
complete. He caused artesian wells to be pierced in the stony

268 RAMESES THE GREAT.

bed of the desert. He carried on the canal begun by his father,
and opened a water-way between the Mediterranean and the
Red Sea.^ No enterprise was too difficult, no project too vast,
for his ambition. " As a child," says the stela of Dakkeh, " he
superintended the public works, and his hands laid their founda-
tions." As a man, he became the supreme Builder. Of his
gigantic structures, only certain colossal fragments have survived
the ravages of time ; yet those fragments are the wonder of
the world.

To estimate the cost at which these things were done is
now impossible. Every temple, every palace, represented a

1 Since this book was written, a further study of the subject has led
me to conjecture that not Seti I, but Queen Hatshepsu (Hatasu) of the
XVIIIth Dynasty, was the actual originator of the canal which connected
the Nile with the Red Sea. The inscriptions engraved upon the walls of
her great Temple at Dayr-el-Bahart expressly state that her squadron sailed
from Thebes to the Land of Punt, and returned from Punt to Thebes, laden
with the products of that mysterious country which Mariette and Maspero
have conclusively shown to have been situate on the Somali coast-line
between Bab-el-Mandeb and Cape Guardafui. Unless, therefore, some
water-way existed at that time between the Nile and the Red Sea, it
follows that Queen Hatshepsu's squadron of discovery must have sailed
northward from Thebes, descended the Nile to one of its mouths, traversed
the whole length of the Mediterranean Sea, gone out through the Pillars
of Hercules, doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and arrived at the Somali
coast by way of the Mozambique Channel and the shores of Zanzibar. In
other words, the Egyptian galleys would twice have made the almost com-
plete circuit of the African continent. This is obviously an untenable
hypothesis ; and there remains no alternative route except that of a canal,
or chain of canals, connecting the Nile with the Red Sea. The old Wady
Tumilat canal has hitherto been universally ascribed to Seti I, for no other
reason than that a canal leading from the Nile to the ocean is represented
on a bas-relief of his reign on the north outer wall of the Great Temple of
Kamak ; but this canal may undoubtedly have been made under the pre-
ceding dynasty, and it is not only probable, but most likely, that the great
woman - Pharaoh, who first conceived the notion of venturing her ships
upon an unknown sea, may also have organised the channel of communica-
tion by which those ships went forth. According to the second edition of
Sir J. W. Dawson's Egypt and Syria, the recent surveys conducted by
Lieut.-Col. Ardagh, Major Spaight, and Lieut. Burton, all of the Royal
Engineers, "render it certain that this valley \i.e. the Wady Tumilat] once
carried a branch of the Nile which discharged its waters into the Red Sea "
(see chap. iii. p. 55); and in such case, if that branch were not already
navigable, Queen Hatshepsu would only have needed to canalise it, which
i§ whJit she probably did. [Note to Second Edition.]

RAMESES THE GREAT. 269

hecatomb of human lives. Slaves from Ethiopia, captives
taken in war, Syrian immigrants settled in the Delta, were
alike pressed into the service of the State. We know how the
Hebrews suffered, and to what an extremity of despair they
were reduced by the tasks imposed upon them. Yet even the
Hebrews were less cruelly used than some who were kidnapped
beyond the frontiers. Torn from their homes without hope of
return, driven in herds to the mines, the quarries, and the brick-
fields, these hapless victims were so dealt with that not even
the chances of desertion were open to them. The negroes
from the South were systematically drafted to the North ; the
Asiatic captives were transported to Ethiopia. Those who
laboured underground were goaded on without rest or respite,
till they fell down in the mines and died.

That Rameses H was the Pharaoh of the captivity,^ and
that Meneptah, his son and successor, was the Pharaoh of the
Exodus,^ are now among the accepted presumptions of Egypto-

1 " Les circonstances de I'histoire hebraique s'appliquent ici d'une
mani^re on ne peut plus satisfaisante. Les Hebreux opprim^s batissaient
une ville du nom de Ramses. Ce rdcit ne peut done s'appliquer qu'k
I'epoque ou la famille de Ramses etait sur le trone. Moise, contraint de
fuir la colore du roi apr^s le meurtre d'un Egyptien, subit un long exil,
parceque le roi ne mourut qu'aprh ten temps fori long; Ramses II
regna en effet plus de 67 ans. Aussitot apres le retour de Moise com-
menga la lutte qui se termina par le celebre passage de la Mer Rouge
Cet ^vdnement eut done lieu sous le fils de Ramses II, ou tout au plus
tard pendant I'epoque de troubles quit suivit son regne. Ajoutons que la
rapidite des derniers evenements ne permet pas de supposer que le roi eiat
sa residence k Thebes dans cet instant. Or, Merenptah a precisement
laisse dans la Basse-Egypte, et spdcialement k Tanis, des preuves impor-
tantes de son sdjour." — De Rouge, Notice des Monuments Egyptiennes du
Rez de Chauss^e du Musee du Louvre, Paris, 1857, p. 22.

" II est impossible d'attribuer ni k Meneptah I, ni k Seti II, ni k
Siptah, ni k Amonmesfes, un r^gne meme de vingt annees ; k plus forte
raison de cinquante ou soixante. Seul, le r^gne de Ramses II remplit
les conditions indispensables. Lors meme que nous ne saurions pas que
ce souverain a occup^ les Hebreux k la construction de la ville de Ramses,
nous serious dans I'impossibilit^ de placer Moise k une autre dpoque,
k moins de faire table rase des renseignements bibliques." — Recherches
pour servir d. VHistoire de la XIX Dynastie : F. Chabas ; Paris, 1873;
p. 148.

2 The Bible narrative, it has often been observed, invariably designates
the King by this title, than which none, unfortunately, can be more vague

270 RAMESES THE GREAT.

logical science. The Bible and the monuments confirm each
other upon these points, while both are again corroborated by
the results of recent geographical and philological research.
The " treasure-cities Pithom and Raamses " which the Israelites
built for Pharaoh with bricks of their own making, are the
Pa-Tum and Pa-Rameses of the inscriptions, and both have
recently been identified by M. Naville, in the course of his
excavations conducted in 1883 and 1886 for the Egypt Ex-
ploration Fund.

The discovery of Pithom, the ancient Biblical "treasure-
city " of the first chapter of Exodus, has probably attracted
more public attention, and been more widely discussed by
European savants, than any archaeological event since the
discovery of Nineveh. It was in February 1883 that M.
Naville opened the well-known mound of Tel-el-Maskhutah,
on the south bank of the new sweet-water canal in the Wady
Tumilat, and there discovered the foundations and other
remains of a fortified city of the kind known in Egyptian as a
Bekhen, or store-fort. This Bekhen, which was surrounded by
a wall 30 feet in thickness, proved to be about 12 acres in
extent. In one corner of the enclosure were found the ruins
of a temple built by Rameses II. The rest of the area con-
sisted of a labyrinth of subterraneous rectangular cellars, or
store-chambers, constructed of sun-dried bricks of large size, and
divided by walls varying from 8 to 10 feet in thickness. In

for purposes of identification. " Plus generalement," says Brugsch, writing
of the royal titles, " sa personne se cache sous une sdrie d'expressions qui
toutes ont le sens de la *■ grande maison'' ou du '^ra«^ palais,' quelquefois
au duel, des ' deux grandes maisofts^ par rapport k la division de I'Egypte

en deux parties. C'est du titre tr^s frequent <->5;— -.^ Per-aa, ' la grande

maison,' 'la haute porte,' q«'on a heureusement deriv^ le nom biblique
Pharao donn^ aux rois d'Egypte." — Histoire dEgypte, Brugsch : 2d
edition, Part I, p. 35 ; Leipzig, 1875.

This probably is the only title under which it was permissible for the
plebeian class to speak or write of the sovereign. It can scarcely have
escaped Herr Brugsch's notice that we even find it literally translated in
Genesis 1. 4, where it is said that " when the days of his mourning were
past, Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh, saying. If now I have found
grace in your eyes," etc. etc. If Moses, however, had but once recorded
the cartouche name of either of his three Pharaohs, archaeologists and
commentators would have been spared a great deal of trouble.

RAMESES THE GREAT. 271

the ruins of the temple were discovered several statues more
or less broken, a colossal hawk inscribed with the royal ovals
of Rameses II, and other works of art dating from the reigns
of Osorkon II, Nectanebo, and Ptolemy Philadelphus. The
hieroglyphic legends engraved upon the statues established the
true value of the discovery by giving both the name of the
city and the name of the district in which the city was situate ;
the first being Pa-Tum (Pithom), the " Abode of Tum," and the
second being Thuku-t (Succoth) ; so identifying " Pa-Tum, in
the district of Thuku-t," with Pithom, the treasure-city built by
the forced labour of the Hebrews, and Succoth, the region in
which they made their first halt on going forth from the land
of bondage. Even the bricks with which the great wall and
the walls of the store-chambers are built bear eloquent testi-
mony to the toil of the suffering colonists, and confirm in its
minutest details the record of their oppression : some being
duly kneaded with straw ; others, when the straw was no
longer forthcoming, being mixed with the leafage of a reed
common to the marshlands of the Delta ; and the remainder,
when even this substitute ran short, being literally " bricks
without straw," moulded of mere clay crudely dried in the sun.
The researches of M. Naville further showed that the Temple
to Tum, founded by Rameses II, was restored, or rebuilt, by
Osorkon II of the XXIInd Dynasty; whilst at a still higher
level were discovered the remains of a Roman fortress. That
Pithom was still an important place in the time of the Ptolemies
is proved by a large and historically important tablet found by
M. Naville in one of the store-chambers, where it had been
thrown in with other sculptures and rubbish of various kinds.
This tablet records repairs done to the canal, an expedition to
Ethiopia, and the foundation of the city of Arsinoe. Not less
important from a geographical point of view was the finding
of a Roman milestone which identifies Pithom with Hero
(Heroopolis), where, according to the Septuagint, Joseph went
forth to meet Jacob. This milestone gives nine Roman miles
as the distance from Heroopolis to Clysma. A very curious
MS. lately discovered by Signore Gamurrini in the library of
Arezzo, shows that even so late as the fourth century of the
Christian era, this ancient walled enclosure — the camp, or

rra RAMESES THE GREAT.

" Ero Castra," of the Roman period, the " Pithr ii " of the
Bible — was still known to pious pilgrims as " the Pithom built
by the Children of Israel " ; that the adjoining town, external
to the camp, at that time established within the old Pithom
boundaries, was known as " Heroopolis ; " and that the town of
Rameses was distant from Pithom about twenty Roman miles.^

As regards Pa-Rameses, the other " treasure- city " of
Exodus, it is conjecturally, but not positively, identified by M.
Naville with the mound of Saft-el-Henneh, the scene of his
explorations in 1886. That Saft-cl-Henneh was identical with
*' Kes," or Goshen, the capital town of the " Land of Goshen,"
has been unequivocally demonstrated by the discoverer ; and
that it was also known, in the time of Rameses II as " Pa-
Rameses " is shown to be highly probable.^ There are remains
of a temple built of black basalt, with pillars, fragments of
statues, and the like, all inscribed with the cartouches of
Rameses II ; and the distance from Pithom is just twenty
Roman miles.

It was from Pa-Rameses that Rameses II set out with his
army to attack the confederate princes of Asia Minor then
lying in ambush near Kadesh ; ^ and it was hither that he

^ This remarkable MS. relates the journey made by a female pilgrim
of French birth, circa a.d. 370, to Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Holy
Land. The MS. is copied from an older original, and dates from the
tenth or eleventh century. Much of the work is lost, but those parts are
yet perfect which describe the pilgrim's progress through Goshen to Tanis,
and thence to Jerusalem, Edessa, and the Haran. Of Pithom it is said :
" Pithona etiam civitas quam oedificaverunt filii Israel ostensa est nobis in
ipso itinere ; in eo tamen loco ubi jam fines Egypti intravimus, religentes
jam terras Saracenorum. Nam et ipsud nunc Pithona castrum est.
Heroun autem civitas quae fuit illo tempere, id est ubi occurit Joseph patri
suo venienti, sicut scriptum est in libro Genesis nunc est comes sed
grandis quod nos dicimus vicus . . . nam ipse vicus nunc appellatur
Hero." See a letter on " Pithom-Heroopolis " communicated to The
Academy by M. Naville, March 22, 1884. See also M. Naville's memoir,
entitled The Store-City of Pithom and the Route of the Exodus (Third
Edition) ; published by order of the Committee of the Egypt E.xploration
Fund, 1888.

2 See M. Naville's Memoir, entitled Goshen and the Shrine of Saft-
el-Henneh^ published by order of the Committee of the Egypt Exploration
Fund, 1887.

* Kadesh, otherwise Katesh or Kades. A town on the Orontes. See

RAMESES THE GREAT. 273

( c

returned in triumph after the great victory. A contemporary-
letter written by one Panbesa, a scribe, narrates in glowing
terms the beauty and abundance of the royal city, and tells
how the damsels stood at their doors in holiday apparel, with
nosegays in their hands and sweet oil upon their locks, "on
the day of the arrival of the War-God of the world." This
letter is in the British Museum.^

Other letters written during the reign of Rameses II have
by some been supposed to make direct mention of the Israelites.

" I have obeyed the orders of my master," writes the scribe
Kauiser to his superior Bak-en-Ptah, " being bidden to serve
out the rations to the soldiers, and also to the Aperiu
[Hebrews ?] who quarry stone for the palace of King Rameses
Mer - Amen," A similar document written by a scribe
named Keniamon, and couched in almost the same words,
shows these Aperiu on another occasion to have been quarrying
for a building on the southern side of Memphis ; in which case
Turra would be the scene of their labours.

These invaluable letters, written on papyrus in the hieratic
character, are in good preservation. They were found in the
ruins of Memphis, and now form part of the treasures of the
Museum of Leyden.- They bring home to us with startling

a paper entitled, " The Campaign of Rameses the Second, in his V^ year,
against Kadesh on the Orontes," by the Rev. G. H. Tomkins, in the Pro-
ceedings of the Society of Biblical Archceology, 1881, 1882; also in the
Transactions of the Society, vol. viii.

1 Anastasi Papyri, No. Ill, Brit. Mus.

2 See Melanges Egyptologiques, by F. Chabas, i Serie, 1862. There
has been much discussion among Egyptologists on the subject of M.
Chabas's identification of the Hebrews. The name by which they are
mentioned in the papyri here quoted, as well as in an inscription in the
quarries of Hamamat, is Ape?-i-u. A learned critic in the Revue Archeo-
logique (vol. v. 2d serie, 1862) writes as follows : " La decouverte du nom
des H^breux dans les hi^roglyphes serait un fait de la demi^re import-
ance ; mais comme aucun autre point historique n'offre peut-etre une pareille
seduction, il faut aussi se mefier des illusions avec un soin meticuleux.
La confusion des sons R et L dans la langue egyptienne, et le voisinage
des articulations B et P nuisent un peu, dans le cas particulier, k la
rigueur des conclusions qu'on pent tirer de la transcription. Neanmoins,
il y a lieu de prendre en consideration ce fait que les Aperiu, dans les trois
documents qui nous parlent d'eux, sont montres employes k des travaux
de meme esp&ce que ceux auxquels, selon TEcriture, les Hdbreux furent

274 RAMESES THE GREAT.

nearness the events and actors of the Bible narrative. We
see the toilers at their task, and the overseers reporting
them to the directors of public works. They extract from
the quarry those huge blocks which are our wonder to this day.
Harnessed to rude sledges, they drag them to the river-side
and embark them for transport to the opposite bank.^ Some
are so large and so heavy that it takes a month to get them
down from the mountain to the landing - place.^ Other
labourers are elsewhere making bricks, digging canals, helping
to build the great wall which reached from Pelusium to
Heliopolis, and strengthening the defences not only of Pithom
and Rameses, but of all the cities and forts between the Red
Sea and the Mediterranean. Their lot is hard ; but not harder
than the lot of other workmen. They are well fed. They
intermarry. They increase and multiply. The season of their
great oppression is not yet come. They make bricks, it is true,
and those who are so employed must supply a certain number
daily ;^ but the straw is not yet withheld, and the task, though
perhaps excessive, is not impossible. For we are here in the

assujettis par les Egyptiens. La circonstance que les papyrus mentionnant
ce nom ont ete trouvds k Memphis, plaide encore en faveur de I'assimila-
tion proposde — decouverte importante qu'il est h, ddsirer de voir confirmee
par d'autres monuments." It should be added that the Aperiu also appear
in the Inscription of Thothmes III at Karnak, and were supposed by
Mariette to be the people of Ephon. It is, however, to be noted that the
inscriptions mention two tribes of Aperiu, a greater and a lesser, or an
upper and a lower tribe. This might perhaps consist with the establish-
ment of Hebrew settlers in the Delta, and others in the neighbourhood of
Memphis. The Aperiu, according to other inscriptions, appear to have
been horsemen, or horse-trainers, which certainly tells against the proba-
bility of their identity with the Hebrews.

1 See the famous wall-painting of the Colossus on the Sledge en-
graved in Sir G. Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians j frontispiece to vol. ii.
ed. 1871.

2 In a letter written by a priest who lived during this reign (Rameses
II), we find an interesting account of the disadvantages and hardships
attending various trades and pursuits, as opposed to the ease and dignity
of the sacerdotal office. Of the mason he says — " It is the climax of his
misery to have to remove a block of ten cubits by six, a block which it
takes a month to drag by the private ways among the houses."— Sallier
Pap. No. II, Brit. Musae.

3 " Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore:
let them go and gather straw for themselves.

RAMESES THE GR^AT. 275

reign of Rameses II, and the time when Meneptah shall succeed
him is yet far distant. It is not till the King dies that the
children of Israel sigh, " by reason of the bondage."

There are in the British Museum, the Louvre, and the
Bibliotheque Nationale, some much older papyri than these
two letters of the Leyden collection — some as old, indeed, as
the time of Joseph — but none, perhaps, of such peculiar
interest. In these, the scribes Kauiser and Keniamon seem
still to live and speak. What would we not give for a few
more of their letters ! These men knew Memphis in its glory,
and had looked upon the face of Rameses the Great They
might even have seen Moses in his youth, while yet he lived
under the protection of his adopted mother, a prince among
princes.

Kauiser and Keniamon lived, and died, and were mummied
between three and four thousand years ago ; yet these frail
fragments of papyrus have survived the wreck of ages, and the
quaint writing with which they are covered is as intelligible to
ourselves as to the functionaries to whom it was addressed.
The Egyptians were eminently business-like, and kept accurate

" And the tale of the bricks, which they did make heretofore, ye shall
lay upon them : ye shall not diminish ought thereof. — Exodus chap. v. 7, 8.

M. Chabas says : " Ces details sont compl^tement conformes aux
habitudes Egyptiennes. Le melange de paille et d'argile dans les briques
antiques a ete parfaitement reconnu. D'un autre cote, le travail ^ la tache
est mentionne dans un texte dcrit au revers d'un papyrus c^ldbrant la
splendeur de la ville de Ramses, et datant, selon toute vraisemblance, du
regne de Meneptah I. En voici la transcription : — ' Compte des masons,
1 2 ; en outre des hommes k mouler la brique dans leurs villes, amenes
aux travaux de la maison. Eux k faire leur nombre de briques journelle-
ment ; non ils sont k se relacher des travaux dans la maison neuve ; c'est
ainsi que j'ai obei au mandat donn^ par mon maitre.' " See Rccherches
■pour servir a FHisioire de la XIX Dynastie, par F. Chabas. Paris ;

1873, p. 149.

The curious text thus translated into French by M. Chabas is written
on the back of the papyrus already quoted {i.e. Letter of Panbesa, Anastasi
Papyri, No. Ill), and is preserved in the British Museum. The wall-
painting in a tomb of the XVIIIth Dynasty at Thebes, which represents
foreign captives mixing clay, moulding, drying, and placing bricks, is well
known from the illustration in Sir G. Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, ed.
of 1 87 1, vol. ii. p. 196. Cases 61 and 62 in the First Egyptian Room,
British Museum, contain bricks of mixed clay and straw stamped with the
names of Rameses II.

276 RAMESES THE GREAT.

entries of the keep and labour of their workmen and captives.
From the earliest epoch of which the monuments furnish record,
we find an elaborate bureaucratic system in full operation
throughout the country. Even in the time of the pyramid-
builders, there are ministers of public works ; inspectors of
lands, lakes, and quarries ; secretaries, clerks, and overseers
innumerable.^ From all these, we may be sure, were required
strict accounts of their expenditure, as well as reports of the
work done under their supervision. Specimens of Egyptian
bookkeeping are by no means rare. The Louvre is rich in
memoranda of the kind ; some relating to the date-tax ; others
to the transport and taxation of corn, the payment of wages,
the sale and purchase of land for burial, and the like. If any
definite and quite unmistakable news of the Hebrews should
ever reach us from Egyptian sources, it will almost certainly be
through the medium of documents such as these.

An unusally long reign, the last forty-six years of which
would seem to have been spent in peace and outward prosperity,
enabled Rameses II to indulge his ruling passion without
interruption. To draw up anything like an exhaustive cata-
logue of his known architectural works would be equivalent to
writing an itinerarj^ of Egypt and Ethiopia under the XlXth
Dynasty. His designs were as vast as his means appear to
have been unlimited. From the Delta to Gebel Barkal, he
filled the land with monuments dedicated to his own glory
and the worship of the Gods. Upon Thebes, Abydos, and
Tanis, he lavished structures of surpassing magnificence. In
Nubia, at the places now known as Gerf Hossayn, Wady
Sabooah, Derr, and Abou Simbel, he was the author of temples

1 " Les affaires de la cour et de radministration du pays sont expddides
par les ' chefs ' ou les ' intendants,' par les ' secretaires ' et par la
nombreuse classe des scribes. . . . Le trdsor rempli d'or et d'argent, et le
divan des depenses et des recettes avaient leurs intendants k eux. La
chambre des comptes ne manque pas. Les domaines, les proprietds, les
palais, et meme les lacs du roi sont mis sous la garde d'inspecteurs.
Les architectes du pharaon s'occupent de batisses d'apres I'ordre du
pharaon. Les carri^res, k partir de celles du Mokattam (le Toora de nos
jours) jusqu'k celles d'Assouan, se trouvent exploitees par des chefs qui
surveillent le transport des pierres taillees k la place de deur destination.
Finalement la corvee est dirigee par les chefs des travaux publics."
Histoire dEgypte, Brugsch : 2d edition, 1875 ; chap. v. pp. 34 and 35.

RAMESES THE GREAT. 277

and the founder of cities. These cities, which would probably
be better described as provincial towns, have disappeared ; and
but for the mention of them in various inscriptions we should
not even know that they had existed. Who shall say how
many more have vanished, leaving neither trace nor record ?
A dozen cities of Rameses ^ may yet lie buried under some of
those nameless mounds which follow each other in such quick
succession along the banks of the Nile in Middle and Lower
Egypt. Only yesterday, as it were, the remains of what would
seem to have been a magnificent structure decorated in a style
absolutely unique, were accidentally discovered under the mounds
of Tel-el-Yahoodeh,2 about twelve miles to the N.E, of Cairo.
There are probably fifty such mounds, none of which have
been opened, in the Delta alone ; and it is no exaggeration
to say that there must be some hundreds between the Mediter-
ranean and the First Cataract.

An inscription found of late years at Abydos shows that
Rameses II reigned over his great kingdom for the space of
sixty-seven years. " It is thou," says Rameses IV, addressing
himself to Osiris, "it is thou who wilt rejoice me with such
length of reign as Rameses II, the great God, in his sixty-

1 The Pa-Rameses of the Bible narrative was not the only Egyptian
city of that name. There was a Pa-Rameses near Memphis, and another
Pa-Rameses at Abou Simbel ; and there may probably have been many
more.

2 " The remains were apparently those of a large hall paved with white
alabaster slabs. The walls were covered with a variety of bricks and
encaustic tiles ; many of the bricks were of most beautiful workmanship,
the hieroglyphs in some being inlaid in glass. The capitals of the columns
were inlaid with brilliant coloured mosaics, and a pattern in mosaics ran
round the cornice. Some of the bricks are inlaid with the oval of
Rameses III." See Murrafs Handbook for Egypt, Route 7, p. 217.

Case D, in the Second Egyptian Room at the British Museum, contains
several of these tiles and terra-cottas, some of which are painted with
figures of Asiatic and Negro captives, birds, serpents, etc. ; and are ex-
tremely beautiful both as regards design and execution. Murray is wrong,
however, in attributing the building to Rameses 1 1. The cartouches are those
of Rameses III. The discovery was made by some labourers in 1870.

Note to Second Edition. — This mound was excavated last year
(1887) by M. Naville, acting as before for the Egypt Exploration Fund.
See Supplementary Sheet to The Illustrated London News, 17th September
1887, containing a complete account of the excavations at Tel-el-Yahoodeh,
etc., with illustrations.

278 RAMESES THE GREAT.

seven years. It is thou who wilt give me the long duration
of this great reign."^

If only we knew at what age Rameses II succeeded to the
throne, we should, by help of this inscription, know also the
age at which he died. No such record has, however, transpired,
but a careful comparison of the length of time occupied by
the various events of his reign, and above all the evidence of
age afforded by the mummy of this great Pharaoh, discovered
in 1886, show that he must have been very nearly, if not
quite, a centenarian.

" Thou madest designs while yet in the age of infancy,"
says the stela of Dakkeh. " Thou wert a boy wearing the side-
lock, and no monument was erected, and no order was given
without thee. Thou wert a youth aged ten years, and all the
public works were in thy hands, laying their foundations."
These lines, translated literally, cannot, however, be said to prove
much. They certainly contain nothing to show that this youth
of ten was, at the time alluded to, sole king and ruler of
Egypt. That he was titular king, in the hereditary sense,
from his birth ^ and during the lifetime of his father, is now

^ This tablet is votive, and contains in fact a long Pharisaic prayer
offered to Osiris by Rameses IV in the fourth year of his reign. The
king enumerates his own virtues and deeds of piety, and implores the God
to grant him length of days. See Sur une StUe inMite d'Abydos, par
P. Pierret. Revue ArchMogique, vol. xix. p. 273.

2 M. Mariette, in his great work on Abydos, has argued that Rameses 1 1
was designated during the lifetime of his father by a cartouche signifying
only Ra-User-Ma; and that he did not take the additional Setp-en-Ra till
after the death of Seti I. The Louvre, however, contains a fragment of
bas-relief representing the infant Rameses with the full title of his later
years. This important fragment is thus described by M. Paul Pierret:
"Ramses II enfant, reprdsente assis sur le signe des montagnes du : c'est
une assimilation au soleil levant lorsqu'il Emerge k I'horizon celeste. II
porte la main gauche k sa bouche, en signe d'enfance. La main droite
pend sur les genoux. II est vdtu d'une longue robe. La tresse de I'enfance
pend sur son epaule. Un diad^me relie ses cheveux, et un uraeus se dresse
sur son front. Voici la traduction de la courte l^gende qui accompagne
cette representation. ' Le roi de la Kaute et de la Basse Egypte, maitre des
deux pays, Ra- User-Ma Setp-en-Ra^ vivificateur, ^temel comme le soleil.' "
Catalogue de la Salle Historique. P. Pierret. Paris, 1873, p. 8.

M. Maspero is of opinion that this one fragment establishes the dis-
puted fact of his actual sovereignty from early childhood, and so disposes
of the entire question. See E Inscription dedicatoire du Temple d'Abydos^

RAMESES THE GREAT. 279

quite certain. That he should, as a boy, have designed pubHc
buildings and superintended their construction is extremely
probable. The office was one which might well have been
discharged by a crown-prince who delighted in architecture,
and made it his peculiar study. It was, in fact, a very noble
office — an office which from the earliest days of the ancient
Empire had constantly been confided to princes of the royal
blood ;^ but it carried with it no evidence of sovereignty. The
presumption, therefore, would be that the stela of Dakkeh
(dating as it does from the third year of the sole reign of
Rameses II) alludes to a time long since past, when the king
as a boy held office under his father.

The same inscription, as we have already seen, makes
reference to the victorious campaign in the South. Rameses
is addressed as " the bull powerful against Ethiopia ; the griffin
furious against the negroes ;" and that the events hereby
alluded to must have taken place during the first three years
of his sole reign is proved by the date of the tablet. The
great dedicatory inscription of Abydos shows, in fact, that
Rameses II was prosecuting a campaign in Ethiopia at the
time when he received intelligence of the death of his father,
and that he came down the Nile, northwards, in order, probably,
to be crowned at Thebes.^

Now the famous sculptures of the commemorative chapel
at Bayt-el-Welly relate expressly to the events of this expedi-
tion ; and as they are executed in that refined and delicate
style which especially characterises the bas-relief work of
Gournah, of Abydos, of all those buildings which were either
erected by Seti the First, or begun by Seti and finished during
the early years of Rameses II, I venture to think we may
regard them as contemporary, or very nearly contemporary,
with the scenes they represent. In any case, it is reasonable

suivi d'un Essai sur la jeunesse de Sesostris. G. Maspero. 4* Paris,
1867. See also chap. viii. (footnote), p. 140.

1 " Le metier d'architecte se trouvait confie aux plus hauts dignitaires
de la cour pharaonique. Les architectes du roi, les Murket, se recrutaient
assez souvent parmi le nombre des princes." Histoire d^Egypie : Brugsch.
Second edition, 1875, chap. v. p. 34.

2 See L! Inscription dedicatoire du Temple d'Abydos, etc., by (',.
Maspero.

28o RAMESES THE GREAT.

to conclude that the artists employed on the work would know
something about the events and persons delineated, and that
they would be guilty of no glaring inaccuracies.

All doubt as to whether the dates refer to the associated
reigns of Seti and Rameses, or to the sole reign of the latter,
vanish, however, when in these same sculptures ^ we find the
conqueror accompanied by his son. Prince Amenherkhopeshef,
who is of an age not only to bear his part in the field, but after-
wards to conduct an important ceremony of state on the occa-
sion of the submission and tribute-offering of the Ethiopian
commander. Such is the unmistakable evidence of the bas-
reliefs at Bayt-el-Welly, as those who cannot go to Bayt-el-
Welly may see and judge for themselves by means of the
admirable casts of these great tableaux which line the walls
of the Second Egyptian Room at the British Museum. To
explain away Prince Amenherkhopeshef would be difficult.
We are accustomed to a certain amount of courtly exaggera-
tion on the part of those who record with pen or pencil the
great deeds of the Pharaohs. We expect to see the king
always young, always beautiful, always victorious. It seems
only right and natural that he should be never less than
twenty, and sometimes more than sixty, feet in height. But
that any flatterer should go so far as to credit a lad of
thirteen with a son at least as old as himself is surely quite
incredible.

Lastly, there is the evidence of the Bible.

Joseph being dead and the Israelites established in Egypt,
there comes to the throne a Pharaoh who takes alarm at the,
increase of this alien race, and who seeks to check their too
rapid multiplication. He not only oppresses the foreigners, but
ordains that every male infant born to them in their bondage
shall be cast into the river. This Pharaoh is now universally
believed to be Rameses II. Then comes the old, sweet, familiar
Bible story that we know so well. Moses is born, cast adrift
in the ark of bulrushes, and rescued by the King's daughter.
He becomes to her "as a son." Although no dates are given,
it is clear that the new Pharaoh has not been long upon the
throne when these events happen. It is equally clear that he
^ See Rosellini, Monumenii Storict, pi. IxxL

RAMESES THE GREAT. 281

is no mere youth. He is old in the uses of state-craft ; and
he is the father of a princess of whom it is difficult to suppose
that she was herself an infant.

On the whole, then, we can but conclude that Rameses II,
though born a King, was not merely grown to manhood, but
wedded, and the father of children already past the period of
infancy, before he succeeded to the sole exercise of sovereign
power. This is, at all events, the view taken by Professor
Maspero, who expressly says, in the latest edition of his
Histoire A ncienne, " that Rameses II, when he received news
of the death of his father, was then in the prime of life, and
surrounded by a large family, some of whom were of an age to
fight under his command." ^

Brugsch places the birth of Moses in the sixth year of the
reign of Rameses 11.^ This may very well be. The fourscore
years that elapsed between that time and the time of the
Exodus correspond with sufficient exactness to the chrono-
logical data furnished by the monuments. Moses would thus
see out the sixty-one remaining years of the King's long life,
and release the Israelites from bondage towards the close of
the reign of Menepthah,^ who sat for about twenty years on
the throne of his fathers. The correspondence of dates this
time leaves nothing to be desired.

1 "A la nouvelle de la mort de son pi^re, Ramses II desormais seul
roi, quitta I'Ethiopie et ceignit la couronne k Thebes. II ^tait alors dans
la plenitude de ses forces, et avail autour de lui un grand nombre d'enfants,
dont quelques-uns etaient assez ag^s pour combattre sous ses ordres."
Ht'sf. Ancienne des Peiiples de VOriettt^ par G. Maspero. Chap. v. p.
220. 4'""= edition, 1886.

2 " Comme Ramses 1 1 regna 66 ans, le regne de son successeur sous lequel
la sortie des Juifs eut lieu, embrassa la duree de 20 ans ; et comme Moise
avait I'age de 80 ans au temps de la sortie, il en rdsulte ^videmment que
les enfants d' Israel quitt^rent I'Egypte une des ces derni^res si.x annees du
r^gne de Menepthah ; c'est k dire entre 1327 et 1321 avant I'^re chretienne.
Si nous admettons que ce pharaon perit dans la mer, selon le rapport biblique,
Moise sera ne 80 ans avant 1321, ou 1401 avant J. Chr., la sixihne annee
du r^gne de Ramses II."— Chap. viii. p. 157. Hist. d'Egypte: Brugsch.
First edition, Leipzig, 1859.

8 If the Exodus took place, however, during the opening years of the
reign of Menepthah, it becomes necessary either to remove the birth of
Moses to a correspondingly earlier date, or to accept the amendment of
Bunsen, who says " we can hardly take literally the statement as to the age

282 RAMESES THE GREAT.

The Sesostris of Diodorus Siculus went blind, and died by
his own hand ; which act, says the historian, as it conformed
to the glory of his life, was greatly admired by his people.
We are here evidently in the region of pure fable. Suicide
was by no means an Egyptian, but a classical virtue. Just as
the Greeks hated age, the Egyptians reverenced it ; and it may
be doubted whether a people who seem always to have passion-
ately desired length of days, would have seen anything to admire
in a wilful shortening of that most precious gift of the gods.
With the one exception of Cleopatra — the death of Nitocris
the rosy-cheeked being also of Greek,^ and therefore question-
able, origin — no Egyptian sovereign is known to have committed
suicide ; and even Cleopatra, who was half Greek by birth,
must have been influenced to the act by Greek and Roman
example. Dismissing, then, altogether this legend of his blind-
ness and self-slaughter, it must be admitted that of the death
of Rameses II we know nothing certain.

Such are, very briefly, the leading facts of the history of
this famous Pharaoh. Exhaustively treated, they would expand
into a volume. Even then, however, one would ask, and ask
in vain, what manner of man he was. Every attempt to evolve
his personal character from these scanty data, is in fact a mere
exercise of fancy." That he was personally valiant may be

of Moses at the Exodus, twice over forty years." Forty years is the mode
of expressing a generation, from thirty to thirty-three years. Egypfs Place
in Universal History: BUNSEN. Lond. 1859. Vol. iii. p. 184. That
Menepthah did not himself perish with his host, seems certain. The
final oppression of the Hebrews and the miracles of Moses, as narrated in
the Bible, give one the impression of having all happened within a com-
paratively short space of time ; and cannot have extended over a period of
twenty years. Neither is it stated that Pharaoh perished. The tomb of
Menepthah, in fact, is found in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings
(Tomb, No. 8).

1 Herodotus, Bk. ii.

2 Rosellini, for instance, carries hero-worship to its extreme limit when
he not only states that Rameses the Great had, by his conquests, filled
Egypt with luxuries that contributed alike to the graces of every-day life and
the security of the state, but (accepting as sober fact the complimentary
language of a triumphal tablet) adds that " universal peace even secured to
him the love of the vanquished " (I'universal pace assicurata dall' amore dei
vinti stessi pel Y a.r2ion€).—Mon. Storici, vol. iii. part ii. p. 294. Bunsen,
equally prejudiced in the opposite direction, can see no trait of magnanimity

R AMESES THE GREAT. 283

gathered, with due reservation, from the poem of Pentaur ;
and that he was not unmerciful is shown in the extradition
clause of the Khetan treaty. His pride was evidently bound-
less. Every temple which he erected was a monument to his own
glory ; every colossus was a trophy ; every inscription a paean
of self-praise. At Abou Simbel, at Derr, at Gerf Hossayn, he
seated his own image in the sanctuary among the images of the
gods.^ There are even instances in which he is depicted under
the twofold aspect of royalty and divinity — Rameses the Pharaoh
burning incense before Rameses the Deity.

For the rest, it is safe to conclude that he was neither
better nor worse than the general run of Oriental despots —
that he was ruthless in war, prodigal in peace, rapacious of
booty, and unsparing in the exercise of almost boundless
power. Such pride and such despotism were, however, in
strict accordance with immemorial precedent, and with the
temper of the age in which he lived. The Egyptians would
seem, beyond all doubt, to have believed that their King was
always, in some sense, divine. They wrote hymns ^ and
offered up prayers to him, and regarded him as the living
representative of Deity. His princes and ministers habitually
addressed him in the language of worship. Even his wives,
who ought to have known better, are represented in the
performance of acts of religious adoration before him. What
wonder, then, if the man so deified believed himself a god ?

or goodness in one whom he loves to depict as " an unbridled despot, who
took advantage of a reign of almost unparalleled length, and of the acquisi-
tions of his father and ancestors, in order to torment his own subjects and
stran<^ers to the utmost of his power, and to employ them as instruments
of his'' passion for war and building." Egypt's Place in Universal History :
BUNSEN. Vol. iii. bk. iv. part ii. p. 184.

1 « Souvent il s'introduit lui-meme dans les triades divines auxquelles
il d^die les temples. Le soleil de Ratnses Meiamoun qu'on aper^oit sur
leur murailles, n'est autre chose que le roi lui-meme deifie de son vivant."
Notice des Monuments Egyptiennes au Musee du Louvre. De Roug6 ;
Paris, 1875, p. 20.

2 See Hymn to Pharaoh (Menepthah) translated by C. W. Goodwin, ,
M.A. Records of the Past, vol. vi. p. loi.

CHAPTER XVI.
ABOU SIMBEL.

We came to Abou Simbel on the night of the 31st of
January, and we left at sunset on the 1 8th of February. Of
these eighteen clear days, we spent fourteen at the foot of the
rock of the Great Temple, called in the old Egyptian tongue
the Rock of Abshek. The remaining four (taken at the end
of the first week and the beginning of the second) were passed
in the excursion to Wady-Halfeh and back. By thus dividing
the time, our long sojourn was made less monotonous for those
who had no especial work to do.

Meanwhile, it was wonderful to wake every morning close
under the steep bank, and, without lifting one's head from the
pillow, to see that row of giant faces so close against the sky.
They showed unearthly enough by moonlight ; but not half so
unearthly as in the grey of dawn. At that hour, the most
solemn of the twenty-four, they wore a fixed and fatal look
that was little less than appalling. As the sky warmed, this
awful look was succeeded by a flush that mounted and
deepened like the rising flush of life. For a moment they
seemed to glow — to smile — to be transfigured. Then came a
flash, as of thought itself It was the first instantaneous flash
of the risen sun. It lasted less than a second. It was gone
almost before one could say that it was there. The next
'moment, mountain, river, and sky, were distinct in the steady
light of day ; and the colossi — mere colossi now — sat serene
and stony in the open sunshine.

Every morning I waked in time to witness that daily

ABOU S 1MB EL. 285

miracle. Every morning I saw those awful brethren pass
from death to life, from life to sculptured stone. I brought
myself almost to believe at last that there must sooner or later
come some one sunrise when the ancient charm would snap
asunder, and the giants must arise and speak.

Stupendous as they are, nothing is more difficult than to
see the colossi properly. Standing between the rock and the
river, one is too near ; stationed on the island opposite, one
is too far off ; while from the sand-slope only a side-view is
obtainable. Hence, for want of a fitting standpoint, many
travellers have seen nothing but deformity in the most perfect
face handed down to us by Egyptian art. One recognises in
it the negro, and one the Mongolian type ;^ while another
admires the fidelity with which " the Nubian characteristics "
have been seized.

Yet, in truth, the head of the young Augustus is not cast
in a loftier mould. These statues are portraits — portraits of
the same man four times repeated ; and that man is Rameses

the Great.

Now, Rameses the Great, if he was as much like his
portraits as his portraits are like each other, must have been

1 The late Vicomte E. de Rouge, in a letter to M. Guigniaut on the dis-
coveries at Tanis, beheves that he detects the Semitic type in the portraits
of Rameses 1 1 and Seti I ; and even conjectures that the Pharaohs of the
XlXth Dynasty may have descended from Hyksos ancestors : " L'origine
de la famille des Ramses nous est jusqu' ici completement inconnue : sa
predilection pour le dieu Set ou Suiech, qui eclate des I'abord par
le nom de Seti i^'-^ {Sethos), ainsi que d'autres indices, pouvaient dejk
engager a la reporter vers la Basse Egypte. Nous savions meme que
Ramses II avait Spouse une fiUe du prince de Khet, quand le traite de
I'an 22 eut ramen^ la paix entre les deux pays. Le profil tr^s-decidement
s^mitique de Sdti et de Ramses se distinguait nettement des figures
ordinaires de nos Pharaons Thebains." (See Revue Archeologique, vol.
ix. A.D. 1864.) In the course of the same letter, M. de Rouge adverts to
the magnificent restoration of the Temple of Sutech at Tanis (San) by
Rameses II, and to the curious fact that the God is there represented
with the peculiar head-dress worn elsewhere by the Prince of Kheta.

It is to be remembered, however, that the patron deity of Rameses II
was Amen-Ra. His homage of Sutech (which might possibly have been
a concession to his Khetan wife) seems to have been confined almost
exclusively to Tanis, where Ma-at-iri-neferu-Ra may be supposed to have
resided,

:86

ABOU S 1MB EL.

one of the handsomest men, not only of his own day, but of
all history. Wheresoever we meet with him, whether in the
fallen colossus at Memphis, or in the syenite torso of the
British Museum, or among the innumerable bas - reliefs of
Thebes, Abydos, Gournah, and Bayt- el -Welly, his features
(though bearing in some instances the impress of youth and
in others of maturity) are always the same. The face is oval ;
the eyes are long, prominent, and heavy-lidded ; the nose is
slightly aquiline and characteristically depressed at the tip ;
the nostrils are open and sensitive ; the under lip projects ; the
chin is short and square.

Here, for instance, is an outline from a bas-
relief at Bayt -el -Welly. The subject is com-
memorative of the king's first campaign. A
beardless youth fired with the rage of battle, he
clutches a captive by the hair and lifts his mace
to slay. In this delicate and Dantesque face
which lacks as yet the fulness and repose of the
later portraits, we recognise all the distinctive traits of the
older Rameses.

Here, again, is a sketch from Abydos, in
which the king, although he has not yet ceased
to wear the side-lock of youth, is seen with
a boyish beard, and looks some three or four
years older than in the previous portrait.
It is interesting to compare these heads

with the accompanying profile of one of the caryatid
colossi inside the great Temple of Abou Simbel ;
and all three with one of the giant portraits of the
facade. This last, whether regarded as a marvel
of size or of portraiture, is the chef-d'oeuvre of
Egyptian sculpture. We here see the great king
in his prime. His features are identical with those
of the head at Bayt-el-Welly ; but the contours
are more amply filled in, and the expression is
altogether changed. The man is full fifteen or twenty years
older. He has outlived that rage of early youth. He is no
longer impulsive, but implacable. A godlike serenity, an
almost superhuman pride, an immutable will, breathe from the

ABOU SIM BEL.

2S7

sculptured stone. He has learned to believe his prowess
irresistible, and himself almost divine. If he now raised his

•■KOHLE OK KA.MESKS II.

(From the Southernmost Colossus; Abou Simbti.)

288 ABOU SIM DEL.

arm to slay, it would be with the stern placidity of a destroying
angel.

The annexed woodcut gives the profile of the southern-
most colossus, which is the only perfect, or very nearly perfect,
one of the four. The original can be correctly seen from but
one point of view ; and that point is where the sandslope
meets the northern buttress of the fagade, at a level just
parallel with the beards of the statues. It was thence that
the present outline was taken. The sandslope is steep, and
loose, and hot to the feet. More disagreeable climbing it
would be hard to find, even in Nubia ; but no traveller who
refuses to encounter this small hardship need believe that he
has seen the faces of the colossi.

Viewed from below, this beautiful portrait is foreshortened
out of all proportion. It looks unduly wide from ear to ear,
while the lips and the lower part of the nose show relatively
larger than the rest of the features. The same may be said of
the great cast in the British Museum. Cooped up at the end
of a narrow corridor and lifted not more than fifteen feet above
the ground, it is carefully placed so as to be wrong from every
point of view and shown to the greatest possible disadvantage.

The artists who wrought the original statues were, however,
embarrassed by no difficulties of focus, daunted by no difficulties
of scale. Giants themselves, they summoned these giants from
out the solid rock, and endowed them with superhuman strength
and beauty. They sought no quarried blocks of syenite or
granite for their work. They fashioned no models of clay.
They took a mountain, and fell upon it like Titans, and
hollowed and carved it as though it were a cherry-stone, and
left it for the feebler men of after-ages to marvel at for ever.
One great hall and fifteen spacious chambers they hewed out
from the heart of it ; then smoothed the rugged precipice
towards the river, and cut four huge statues with their faces to
the sunrise, two to the right and two to the left of the doorway,
there to keep watch to the end of time.

These tremendous warders sit sixty-six feet high, without
the platform under their feet. They measure across the chest
2 5 feet and 4 inches ; from the shoulder to the elbow, i 5 feet
and 6 inches ; from the inner side of the elbow joint to the tip

ABOU SIM BEL. 28Q

of the middle finger, i 5 feet ; and so on, in relative proportion.
If they stood up, they would tower to a height of at least 83
feet, from the soles of their feet to the tops of their enormous
double-crowns.

Nothing in Egyptian sculpture is perhaps quite so wonder-
ful as the way in which these Abou Simbel artists dealt witli
the thousands of tons of material to which they here gave
human form. Consummate masters of effect, they knew pre-
cisely what to do, and what to leave undone. These were
portrait statues ; therefore they finished the heads up to the
highest point consistent with their size. But the trunk and
the lower limbs they regarded from a decorative rather than a
statuesque point of view. As decoration, it was necessary that
they should give size and dignity to the fagade. Everything,
consequently, was here subordinated to the general effect of
breadth, of massiveness, of repose. Considered thus, the
colossi are a triumph of treatment. Side by side they sit,
placid and majestic, their feet a little apart, their hands resting
on their knees. Shapely though they are, those huge legs
look scarcely inferior in girth to the great columns of Karnak.
The articulations of the knee-joint, the swell of the calf, the
outline of Xhe peroneus longus are indicated rather than devel-
oped. The toe-nails and toe-joints are given in the same bold
and general way ; but the fingers, because only the tips of
them could be seen from below, are treated en bloc.

The faces show the same largeness of style. The little
dimple which gives such sweetness to the corners of the mouth,
and the tiny depression in the lobe of the ear, are in fact
circular cavities as large as saucers.

How far this treatment is consistenr with the most perfect
delicacy and even finesse of execution, may be gathered from
the sketch. The nose there shown in profile is 3 feet and a
half in length ; the mouth so delicately curved is about the
same in width ; even the sensitive nostril, which looks ready
to expand with the breath of life, exceeds 8 inches in length.
The ear (which is placed high, and is well detached from the
head) measures 3 feet and 5 inches from top to tip.

A recent writer,^ who brings sound practical knowledge to
^ " L absence de points fouillcs, la simplification voulue, la restriction des

290 ABOU SIM BEL.

bear upon the subject, is of opinion that the Egyptian sculptors
did not even " point " their work beforehand. If so, then the
marvel is only so much the greater. The men who, working
in so coarse and friable a material, could not only give beauty
and finish to heads of this size, but could with barbaric tools
hew them out ab initio from the natural rock, were the Michael
Angelos of their age.

It has already been said that the last Rameses to the
southward is the best preserved. His left arm and hand are
injured, and the head of the uraeus sculptured on the front of
the pschent is gone ; but with these exceptions the figure is as
whole, as fresh in surface, as sharp in detail, as on the day it
was completed. The next is shattered to the waist. His
head lies at his feet, half buried in sand. The third is nearly
as perfect as the first ; while the fourth has lost not only the
whole beard and the greater part of the uraeus, but has both
arms broken away, and a big, cavernous hole in the front of
the body. From the double-crowns of the two last, the top
ornament is also missing. It looks a mere knob ; but it
measures eight feet in height.

Such an effect does the size of these four figures produce
on the mind of the spectator, that he scarcely observes the
fractures they have sustained. I do not remember to have
even missed the head and body of the shattered one, although
nothing is left of it above the knees. Those huge legs and
feet covered with ancient inscriptions,^ some of Greek, some of

details et des ornements k quelques sillons plus ou moins hardis, I'engorge-
ment de toutes ^es parties delicates, demontrent que les Egyptiens etaient
loin d'avoir des precedes et des facilites inconnus." — La Sculpture
Egyptienne, par Emile Soldi, p. 48.

" Un fait qui nous parait avoir du entraver les progres de la sculpture,
c'est I'habitude probable des sculpteurs ou entrepreneurs egyptiens d'entre-
prendre le travail k meme sur la pierre, sans avoir prealablement cherche
le module en terre glaise, comme on le fait de nos jours. Une fois le
module fini, on le moule et on le reproduit mathematiquement definitive.
Ce precede a toujours ete employe dans les grandes epoques de I'art ; et il
ne nous a pas semble qu'il ait jamais ete en usage en Egypte." — Ibid. p. 82.

M. Soldi is also of opinion that the Egyptian sculptors were ignorant
of many of the most useful tools known to the Greek, Roman, and modern
sculptors, such as the emery-tube, the diamond-point, etc. etc.

' On the left leg of this colossus is the famous Greek inscription dis-
covered by Messrs. Bankes and Salt. It dates from the reign of Psam-

ABOU SIM BEL.

Phcenician origin, tower so high above the heads of those who
look at them from below, that one scarcely thinks of looking
higher still.

The figures are naked to the waist, and clothed in the
usual striped tunic. On their heads they wear the double-
crown, and on their necks rich collars of cabochon drops cut
in very low relief. The feet are bare of sandals, and the arms
of bracelets ; but in the front of the body, just where the
customary belt and buckle would come, are deep holes in the
stone, such as might have been made to receive rivets, supposing
the belts to have been made of bronze or gold. On the breast,
just below the necklace, and on the upper part of each arm,
are cut in magnificent ovals, between four and five feet in
length, the ordinary cartouches of the king. These were
probably tattooed upon his person in the flesh.

Some have supposed that these statues were originally
coloured, and that the colour may have been effaced by the
ceaseless shifting and blowing of the sand. Yet the drift was
probably at its highest when Burckhardt discovered the place
in 1 8 1 3 ; and on the two heads that were still above the
surface, he seems to have observed no traces of colour. Neither
can the keenest eye detect any vestige of that delicate film of
stucco with which the Egyptians invariably prepared their
surfaces for painting. Perhaps the architects were for once
content with the natural colour of the sandstone, which is here
very rich and varied. It happens also that the colossi come
in a light-coloured vein of the rock, and so sit relieved against
a darker background. Towards noon, when the level of the

metichus I, and purports to have been cut by a certain Damearchon, one of
the 240,000 Egyptian troops of whom it is related by Herodotus (Book 11.
•chaps. 29, 30) that thejt deserted because they were kept in garrison at
Syene for three years without being relieved. The inscription, as translated
by Colonel Leake, is thus given in Rawlinson's Herodotus (vol. ii. p. 37)-
*' King Psamatichus having come to Elephantine, those who were wit..
Psamatichus, the son of Theocles wrote this. They sailed, and came to
•above Kerkis, to where the river rises ... the Egyptian Amasis. . . .
The writer is Damearchon the son of Amoebichus, and Pelephus (Pelekos),
the son of Udamus." The king Psamatichus here named has been
identified with the Psamtik I of the inscriptions. It was in his reign, and
not as it has sometimes been supposed, in the reign of Psammetichus
II, that the great military defection took place.

292 ABOU SIM BEL.

facade has just passed into shade and the sunlight still strikes
upon the statues, the effect is quite startling. The whole
thing, which is then best seen from the island, looks like a
huge onyx-cameo cut in high relief.

A statue of Ra,^ to whom the temple is dedicated, stands
some twenty feet high in a niche over the doorway, and is
supported on either side by a bas-relief portrait of the king in
an attitude of worship. Next above these comes a superb
hieroglyphic inscription reaching across the whole front ; above
the inscription, a band of royal cartouches ; above the cartouches,
a frieze of sitting apes ; above the apes, last and highest, some
fragments of a cornice. The height of the whole may have
been somewhat over a hundred feet. Wherever it has been
possible to introduce them as decoration, we see the ovals of
the king. Under those sculptured on the platforms and over

the door, I observed the hieroglyphic character ( 0ff^s\ )■>
which, in conjunction with the sign known as the determinative
of metals, signifies gold (Nub) ; but when represented, as here,
without the determinative, stands for Nubia, the Land of Gold,
This addition, which I do not remember to have seen elsewhere
in connection with the cartouches of Rameses II,- is here used
in an heraldic sense, as signifying the sovereignty of Nubia.

The relative position of the two Temples of Abou Simbel
has been already described — how they are excavated in two
adjacent mountains and divided by a cataract of sand. The
front of the small Temple lies parallel to the course of the
Nile, here flowing in a north-easterly direction. The facade

1 Ra, the principal solar divinity, generally represented with the head
of a hawk, and the sun-disk on his head. " Ra veut dire faire^ disposer ;
c'est, en effet, le dieu Ra qui a dispose, organist le monde, dont la matiere
lui a etd donnee par Ptah." — P. Pierret : Dio^onnaire d' Archeologie
Egyptienne.

" Ra est une autre des intelligences demiurgiques. Ptah avait cx€€
le soleil ; le soleil, a son tour, est le createur des etres, animaux et hotnmes.
II est k I'hemisphfere superieure ce qu'Osiris est k I'h^misphere inferieure.
Ra s'incarne k H^liopolis." — A. Marieite : Notice des Monuments ct
Boulak, p. 123.

2 An instance occurs, however, in a small inscription sculptured on the
rocks of the Island of Sehayl in the First Cataract, which records the
second panegyry of the reign of Rameses II. — See Recueil des Monuments,
etc. : Brugsch, vol. ii., Planche Ixxxii., Inscription No. 6.

ABOU SIM BEL. 29 j

of the Great Temple is cut in the flank of the mountain, and
faces due east. Thus the colossi, towering above the shoulder
of the sand-drift, catch, as it were, a side view of the small
Temple and confront vessels coming up the river. As for the
sand-drift, it curiously resembles the glacier of the Rhone.
In size, in shape, in position, in all but colour and substance,
it is the same. Pent in between the rocks at top, it opens
out like a fan at bottom. In this its inevitable course, it
slants downward across the facade of the Great Temple. For
ever descending, drifting, accumulating, it wages the old
stealthy war ; and, unhasting, unresting, labours grain by grain
to fill the hollowed chambers, and bury the great statues, and
wrap the whole Temple in a winding-sheet of golden sand,
so that the place thereof shall know it no more.

It had very nearly come to this when Burckhardt went up
(a.d. 1 8 1 3). The top of the doorway was then thirty feet
below the surface. Whether the sand will ever reach that
height again, must depend on the energy with which it is
combated. It can only be cleared as it accumulates. To
avert it is impossible. Backed by the illimfitable wastes of
the Libyan desert, the supply from above is inexhaustible.
Come it must ; and come it will, to the end of time.

The drift rose to the lap of the northernmost colossus and
half-way up the legs of the next, when the Philas lay at Abou
Simbel. The doorway was clear, however, almost to the
threshold, and the sand inside was not more than two feet
deep in the first hall. The whole fagade, we were told, had
been laid bare, and the interior swept and garnished, when the
Empress of the French, after opening the Suez Canal in 1869,
went up the Nile as far as the Second Cataract. By this time,
most likely, that yellow carpet lies thick and soft in every
chamber, and is fast silting up the doorway again.

How well I remember the restless excitement of our first
day at Abou Simbel ! While the morning was yet cool, the
Painter and the Writer wandered to and fro, comparing and
selecting points of view, and superintending the pitching of
their tents. The Painter planted his on the very brink of the
bank, face to face with the colossi and the open doorway.
The Writer perched some forty feet higher on the pitch of

ABOU SIM BEL. 295

the sandslope ; so getting a side-view of the facade, and a
peep of distance looking up the river.^ To fix the tent up
there was no easy matter. It was only by sinking the tent-
pole in a hole filled with stones, that it could be trusted to
stand against the steady push of the north wind, which at this
season is almost always blowing.

Meanwhile the travellers from the other dahabeeyahs were
tramping backwards and forwards between the two Temples ;
filling the air with laughter, and waking strange echoes in the
hollow mountains. As the day wore on, however, they returned
to their boats, which one by one spread their sails and bore
away for Wady Halfeh.

When they were fairly gone and we had the marvellous
place all to ourselves, we went to see the Temples.

The smaller one, though it comes first in order of sailing,
is generally seen last ; and seen therefore to disadvantage. To
eyes fresh from the " Abode of Ra," the " Abode of Hathor "
looks less than its actual size ; which is in fact but little
inferior to that of the Temple at Derr. A first hall, measuring
some 40 feet in length by 2 1 in width, leads to a transverse
corridor, two side-chambers, and a sanctuary 7 feet square, at
the upper end of which are the shattered remains of a cow-
headed statue of Hathor. Six square pillars, as at Derr,
support what, for want of a better word, one must call the
ceiling of the hall ; though the ceiling is in truth the super-
incumbent mountain.

In this arrangement, as in the general character of the bas-
relief sculptures which cover the walls and pillars, there is much
simplicity, much grace, but nothing particularly new. The
fagade, on the contrary, is a daring innovation. To those who
have not seen the place the annexed illustration is worth pages
of description ; and to describe it in words only would be
difficult. Here the whole front is but a frame for six recesses,
from each of which a colossal statue, erect and life-like, seems
to be walking straight out from the heart of the mountain.
These statues, three to the right and three to the left of the
doorway, stand thirty feet high, and represent Rameses II and
Nefertari, his queen. Mutilated as they are, the male figures
1 See the Frontispiece.

296 ABOU SIM BEL.

are full of spirit, and the female figures full of grace. The
Queen wears on her head the plumes and disk of Hathor.
The king is crowned with the pschent, and with a fantastic
helmet adorned with plumes and horns. They have their
children with them ; the Queen her daughters, the King his
sons — infants of ten feet high, whose heads just reach to the
parental knee.

The walls of these six recesses, as they follow the slope of
the mountain, form massive buttresses, the effect of which is
wonderfully bold in light and shadow. The doorway gives the
only instance of a porch that we saw in either Egypt or Nubia.
The superb hieroglyphs which cover the faces of these buttresses
and the front of this porch are cut half-a-foot deep into the rock,
and are so large that they can be read from the island in the
middle of the river. The tale they tell — a tale retold, in many
varied turns of old Egyptian style upon the architraves within
— is singular and interesting.

" Rameses, the Strong in Truth, the Beloved of Amen,"
says the outer legend, " made this divine Abode ^ for his royal
wife, Nefertari, whom he loves."

The legend within, after enumerating the titles of the
King, records that " his royal wife who loves him, Nefertari the
Beloved of Maut, constructed for him this Abode in the
mountain of the Pure Waters."

On every pillar, in every act of worship pictured on the
walls, even in the sanctuary, we find the names of Rameses
and Nefertari " coupled and inseparable." In this double
dedication, and in the unwonted tenderness of the style, one
seems to detect traces of some event, perhaps of some anniver-
sary, the particulars of which are lost for ever. It may have

1 Though dedicated by Rameses to Nefertari, and by Nefertari to
Rameses, this Temple was placed, primarily, under the patronage of
Hathor, the supreme type of divine maternity. She is represented by
Queen Nefertari, who appears on the fagade as the mother of si.x children,
and adorned with the attributes of the goddess. A Temple to Hathor
would also be, from a religious point of view, the fitting pendant to a
Temple of Ra. M. Mariette, in his Notice des Monuments d Boulak,
remarks of Hathor that her functions are still but imperfectly known to us.
" Peutetre etait-elle k Ra ce que Maut est \ Ammon, le recipient oil le dieu
s'engendre lui-meme pour I'^lernitd."

ABOU SIM BEL. 297

been a meeting ; it may have been a parting ; it may have
been a prayer answered, or a vow fulfilled. We see, at all
events, that Rameses and Nefertari desired to leave behind
them an imperishable record of the affection which united them
on earth, and which they hoped would reunite them in Amenti.
What more do we need to know ? We see that the Queen was
fair ; ^ that the King was in his prime. We divine the rest ;
and the poetry of the place at all events is ours. Even in
these barren solitudes there, is wafted to us a breath from the
shores of old romance. We feel that Love once passed this
way, and that the ground is still hallowed where he trod.

We hurried on to the Great Temple, without waiting to
examine the lesser one in detail. A solemn twilight reigned
in the first hall, beyond which all was dark. Eight colossi,
four to the right and four to the left, stand ranged down the
centre, bearing the mountain on their heads. Their height is
twenty-five feet. With hands crossed on their breasts, they
clasp the flail and crook ; emblems of majesty and dominion.
It is the attitude of Osiris, but the face is the face of Rameses
II. Seen by this dim light, shadowy, mournful, majestic, they
look as if they remembered the past.

Beyond the first hall lies a second hall supported on four

^ It is not often that one can say of a female head in an Egyptian
wall-painting that it is beautiful ; but in these portraits of the Queen, many
times repeated upon the walls of the first Hall of the Temple of Hathor,
there is, if not positive beauty according to our western notions, much
sweetness and much grace. The name of Nefertari means Perfect, Good,
or Beautiful Companion. That the word " Nefer" should mean both Good
and Beautiful — in fact, that Beauty and Goodness should be synonymous
terms — is not merely interesting as it indicates a lofty philosophical stand-
point, but as it reveals, perhaps, the latent germ of that doctrine which was
hereafter to be taught with such brilliant results in the Alexandrian Schools.
It is remarkable that the word for Truth and Justice {Ma) was also one
and the same.

There is often a quaint significance about Egyptian proper names which
reminds one of the names that came into favour in England under the
Commonwealth. Take for instance Bak-en-Khonsu, Servant-of-Khons ;
Pa-ta-anien, the Gift of Amnion ; Rettpiiftefer, Good-year ; Nub-en Tekh,
Worth-her-Weight-in-Gold (both women's names) ; and Hor-mes-otif -a-Shu,
Horus-son-of-the-Eye-of-Shu — which last, as a tolerably long compound, may
claim relationship with Praise-God Barebones, Hew-Agag-in Pieces-before-
the-Lord, etc. etc.

298 ABOU SIM BEL.

square pillars ; beyond this again, a transverse chamber, the
walls of which are covered with coloured bas-reliefs of various
Gods ; last of all, the sanctuary. Here, side by side, sit four
figures larger than life — Ptah, Amen-Ra, Ra, and Rameses
deified. Before them stands an altar, in shape a truncated
pyramid, cut from the solid rock. Traces of colour yet linger
on the garments of the statues ; while in the walls on either
side are holes and grooves such as might have been made to
receive a screen of metal-work.

The air in the sanctuary was heavy with an acrid smoke, as
if the priests had been burning some strange incense and were
only just gone. For this illusion we were indebted to the
visitors who had been there before us. They had lit the place
with magnesian wire ; the vapour of which lingers long in these
unventilated vaults.

To settle down then and there to a steady investigation of
the wall-sculptures was impossible. We did not attempt it.
Wandering from hall to hall, from chamber to chamber ; now
trusting to the faint gleams that straggled in from without, now
stumbling along by the light of a bunch of candles tied to the
end of a stick, we preferred to receive those first impressions of
vastness, of mystery, of gloomy magnificence, which are the
more profound for being somewhat vague and general.

Scenes of war, of triumph, of worship, passed before our
eyes like the incidents of a panorama. Here the King, borne
along at full gallop by plumed steeds gorgeously caparisoned,
draws his mighty bow and attacks a battlemented fortress.
The besieged, some of whom are transfixed by his tremendous
arrows, supplicate for mercy. They are a Syrian people, and
are by some identified with the Northern Hittites. Their skin
is yellow ; and they wear the long hair and beard, the fillet,
the rich robe, fringed cape, and embroidered baldric with which
we are familiar in the Nineveh sculptures. A man driving off
cattle in the foreground looks as if he had stepped out of one
of the tablets in the British Museum. Rameses meanwhile
towers, swift and godlike, above the crowd. His coursers are
of such immortal strain as were the coursers of Achilles. His
sons, his whole army, chariot and horse, follow headlong at his
heels. All is movement and the splendour of battle.

ABOU SIM BEL. 299

Farther on, we see the King returning in state, preceded by
his prisoners of war. Tied together in gangs, they stagger as
they go, with heads thrown back and hands uplifted. These,
however, are not Assyrians, but Abyssinians and Nubians, so
true to the type, so thick-lipped, flat-nosed, and woolly-headed,
that only the pathos of the expression saves them from being
ludicrous. It is naturalness pushed to the verge of caricature.

A little farther still, and we find Rameses leading a string
of these captives into the presence of Amen-Ra, Maut, and
Khons — Amen-Ra weird and unearthly, with his blue com-
plexion and towering plumes ; Maut wearing the crown of
Upper Egypt ; Khons by a subtle touch of flattery depicted
with the features of the King. Again, to right and left of the
entrance, Rameses, thrice the size of life, slays a group of captives
of various nations. To the left Amen-Ra, to the right Ra
Harmachis,^ approve and accept the sacrifice. In the second
hall we see, as usual, the procession of the sacred bark. Ptah,
Khem, and Bast, gorgeous in many-coloured garments, gleam
dimly, like figures in faded tapestr}', from the walls of the trans-
verse corridor.

But the wonder of Abou Simbel is the huge subject on the
north side of the Great Hall. This is a monster battle-piece
which covers an area of 57 feet and 7 inches in length, by 25
feet 4 inches in height, and contains over i 100 figures. Even
the heraldic cornice of cartouches and asps which runs round
the rest of the ceiling is omitted on this side, so that the wall
is literally filled with the picture from top to bottom.

Fully to describe this huge design would take many pages.
It is a picture-gallery in itself It represents not a single
action but a whole campaign. It sets before us, with Homeric
simplicity, the pomp and circumstance of war, the incidents of
camp life, and the accidents of the open field. We see the
enemy's city with its battlemented towers and triple moat ; the
besiegers' camp and the pavilion of the king ; the march of
infantry ; the shock of chariots ; the hand-to-hand melee ; the
flight of the vanquished ; the triumph of the Pharaoh ; the
bringing in of the prisoners ; the f:ounting of the hands of the

1 Ra Harmachis, in Egy'ptian Har-em-Khou-ti, personifies the sun rising
upon the eastern horizon.

300 ABOU SI MB EL.

slain. A great river winds through the picture from end to
end, and almost surrounds the invested city. The king in his
chariot pursues a crowd of fugitives along the bank. Some
are crushed under his wheels ; some plunge into the water and
are drowned.^ Behind him, a moving wall of shields and
spears, advances with rhythmic step the serried phalanx ;
while yonder, where the fight is thickest, we see chariots over-
turned, men dead and dying, and riderless horses making for
the open. Meanwhile the besieged send out mounted scouts,
and the country folk drive their cattle to the hills.

x\ grand frieze of chariots charging at full gallop divides
the subject lengthwise, and separates the Egyptian camp from
the field of battle. The camp is square, and enclosed, appar-
ently, in a palisade of shields. It occupies less than one sixth
part of the picture, and contains about a hundred figures.
Within this narrow space the artist has brought together an
astonishing variety of incidents. The horses feed in rows from
a common manger, or wait their turn and impatiently paw the
ground. Some are lying down. One, just unharnessed,
scampers round the enclosure. Another, making off with the
empty chariot at his heels, is intercepted by a couple of grooms.
Other grooms bring buckets of water slung from the shoulders
on wooden yokes. A wounded officer sits apart, his head
resting on his hand ; and an orderly comes in haste to bring
him news of the battle. Another, hurt apparently in the foot,
is having the wound dressed by a surgeon. Two detachments of
infantry, marching out to reinforce their comrades in action, are
met at the entrance to the camp by the royal chariot returning
from the field. Rameses drives before him some fugitives, who
are trampled down, seized, and despatched upon the spot.
In one corner stands a row of objects that look like joints of
meat ; and near them are a small altar and a tripod brazier.
Elsewhere, a couple of soldiers, with a big bowl between them,
sit on their heels and dip their fingers in the mess, precisely as
every Fellah does to this day. Meanwhile it is clear that
Egyptian discipline was strict, and that the soldier who trans-
gressed was as abjectly subject to the rule of stick as his
modern descendant. In no less than three places do we see
1 See chap. viii. pp. 139-140 ; also chap. xxi. p. 420.

ABOU SIMBEL. 301

this time-honoured institution in full operation, the superior
officer energetically flourishing his staff; the private taking his
punishment with characteristic disrelish. In the middle of the
camp, watched over by his keeper, lies Rameses' tame lion ;
while close against the royal pavilion a hostile spy is surprised
and stabbed by the officer on guard. The pavilion itself is
very curious. It is evidently not a tent but a building, and
was probably an extemporaneous construction of crude brick.
It has four arched doorways, and contains in one corner an
object like a cabinet, with two sacred hawks for supporters.
This object, which is in fact almost identical with the hiero-
glyphic emblem used to express a royal panegyry or festival,
stands, no doubt, for the private oratory of the King. Five
figures kneel before it in adoration.

To enumerate all or half the points of interest in this
amazing picture would ask altogether too much space. Even
to see it, with time at command and all the help that candles
and magnesian torches can give, is far from easy. The relief
is unusually low, and the surface, having originally been covered
with stucco, is purposely roughened all over with tiny chisel-
marks, which painfully confuse the details. Nor is this all.
Owing to some kind of saline ooze in that part of the rock, the
stucco has not only peeled off, but the actual surface is injured.
It seems to have been eaten away, just as iron is eaten by rust.
A few patches adhere, however, in places, and retain the
original colouring. The river is still covered with blue and
white zigzags, to represent water ; some of the fighting groups
are yet perfect ; and two very beautiful royal chariots, one of
which is surmounted by a richly ornamented parasol-canopy, are
as fresh and brilliant as ever.

The horses throughout are excellent. The chariot frieze
is almost Panathenaic in its effect of multitudinous movement ;
while the horses in the camp of Rameses, for naturalness and
variety of treatment, are perhaps the best that Egyptian art has
to show. It is worth noting also that a horseman, that rara avisy
occurs some four or five times in different parts of the picture.

The scene of the campaign is laid in Syria. The river of
blue and white zigzags is the Orontes ;^ the city of the besieged
^ In Egyptian, Aaranaiu.

302 ABOU SIM BEL.

is Kadesh or Kades •} the enemy are the Kheta. The wliole
is, in fact, a grand picture-epic of the events immortaHsed in
the poem of Pentaur — that poem which M de Rouge has
described as "a sort of Egyptian lUad." The comparison
would, however, apply to tlie picture with greater force than it
applies to the poem. Pentaur, who was in the first place a
courtier and in the second place a poet, has sacrificed everything
to the prominence of his central figure. He is intent upon
the glorification of the King ; and his poem, which is a mere
paean of praise, begins and ends with the prowess of Rameses
Mer-Amen. If, then, it is to be called an Iliad, it is an
Iliad from which everything that does not immediately concern
Achilles is left out. The picture, on the contrary, though it
shows the hero in combat and in triumph, and always of
colossal proportions, yet has space for a host of minor characters.
The episodes in which these characters appear are essentially
Homeric. The spy is surprised and slain, as Dolon was slain
by Ulysses. The men feast, and fight, and are wounded, just
like the long-haired sons of Achaia ; while their horses, loosed
from the yoke, eat white barley and oats

" Hard by their chariots, waiting for the dawn."

Like Homer, too, the artist of the battle-piece is careful to
point out the distinguishing traits of the various combatants.
The Kheta go three in a chariot ; the Egyptians only two.
The Kheta wear a moustache and scalp-lock ; the Egyptians
pride themselves on " a clean shave," and cover their bare heads
with ponderous wigs. The Sardinian contingent cultivate their
own thick hair, whiskers, and mustachios ; and their features
are distinctly European. They also wear the curious helmet,
surmounted by a ball and two spikes, by which they may
always be recognised in the sculptures. These Sardinians
appear only in the border-frieze, next the floor. The sand

^ In Egyptian, Kateshu. "Aujourdhui encore il existe une ville de
Kades pr^s d'une courbe de I'Oronte dans le voisinage de Horns." Leqons
de M. de Rouge ^ Professees au College de France. See Melanges
d'Archeologie, Egyp. and Assyr., vol. ii. p. 269. Also a valuab'e
paper, entitled " The Campaign of Rameses II against Kadesh," by the Rev
G. H. Tomkins, Trans, of i lie Soc. 0/ Bib. Arch. vol. viii. part 3, 1882.
The bend of the river is actually given in the bas-reliefs.

ABOU SIMBEL. 303

had drifted up just at that spot, and only the top of one
fantastic helmet was visible above the surface. Not knowing
in the least to what this might belong, we set the men to
scrape away the sand ; and so, quite by accident, uncovered
the most curious and interesting group in the whole picture.
The Sardinians ^ (in lp!gyptian Shardana) seem to have been
naturalised prisoners of war drafted into the ranks of the
Egyptian army ; and are the first European people whose
name appears on the monuments.

There is but one hour in the twenty-four at which it is
possible to form any idea of the general effect of this vast
subject ; and that is at sunrise. Then only does the pure
day stream in through the doorway, and temper the gloom of
the side-aisles with light reflected from the sunlit floor. The
broad divisions of the picture and the distribution of the
masses may then be dimly, seen. The details, however, require
candle-light, and can only be studied a few inches at a time.
Even so, it is difficult to make out the upper groups without
the help of a ladder. Salame, mounted on a chair and
provided with two long sticks lashed together, could barely
hold his little torch high enough to enable the Writer to copy
the inscription on the middle tower of the fortress of Kadesh.

It is fine to see the sunrise on the front of the Great
Temple ; but something still finer takes place on certain
mornings of the year, in the very heart of the mountain. As
the sun comes up above the eastern hill-tops, one long, level
beam strikes through the doorway, pierces the inner darkness

1 " La legion Shardana de I'armee de Ramses II provenait d'une
premiere descente de ces peuples en Egypte. ' Les S'ardaina qui etaient
des prisonniers de sa majest^,' dit expressement le texte de Karnak, au
commencement du poeme de Pentaur. Les arch^ologues ont remarqu^
la richesse de leur costume et de leurs armures. Les principales pieces
de leur vetements semblent couvertes de broderies. Leur bouchier est
une rondache : ils portent une longue et large ep^e de forme ordinaire,
mais on remarque aussi dans leurs mains une epde d'une longueur
demesurde. Le casque des S'ardana est tr^s caracterisque ; sa forme est
arrondie, mais il est surmonte d'une tige qui supporte une boule de metal.
Get ornament est accompagne de deux comes en forme de croissant. . . .
Les S'ardana de I'arm^e Egyptienne ont seulement des favoris et des
moustaches coupes tr^s courts." — Memoire sur les Attaques Diris'ces centre
r Egypte, etc. etc. E. De Rouge. Revue ArcJicologi'jue, vol. xvi. pp. 90, 91.

304 A HO U SIM BEL.

like an arrow, penetrates to the sanctuary, and falls like fire
from heaven upon the altar at the feet of the Gods.

No one who has watched for the coming of that shaft of
sunlight can doubt that it was a calculated effect, and that the
excavation was directed at one especial angle in order to pro-
duce it. In this way Ra, to whom the tqmple was dedicated,
may be said to have entered in daily, and by a direct mani-
festation of his presence to have approved the sacrifices of his
worshippers.

I need scarcely say that we did not see half the wall-
sculptures or even half the chambers, that first afternoon at
Abou Simbel. We rambled to and fro, lost in wonder, and
content to wonder, like rustics at a fair. We had, however,
ample time to come again and again, and learn it all by heart.
The Writer went in constantly, and at all hours ; but most
frequently at the end of the day's sketching, when the rest
were walking or boating in the cool of the late afternoon.

It is a wonderful place to be alone in — a place in which
the very darkness and silence are old, and in which Time
himself seems to have fallen asleep. Wandering to and fro
among these sculptured halls, like a shade among shadows,
one seems to have left the world behind ; to have done with
the teachings of the present ; to belong one's self to the past.
The very Gods assert their ancient influence over those who
question them in solitude. Seen in the fast-deepening gloom
of evening, they look instinct with supernatural life. There
were times when I should scarcely have been surprised to hear
them speak — to see them rise from their painted thrones and
come down from the walls. There were times when I felt
I believed in them.

There was something so weird and awful about the place,
and it became so much more weird and awful the farther one
went in, that I rarely ventured beyond the first hall when
quite alone. One afternoon, however, when it was a little
earlier, and therefore a little lighter, than usual, I went to the
very end, and sat at the feet of the Gods in the sanctuary.
All at once (I cannot tell why, for my thoughts just then were
far away) it flashed upon me that a whole mountain hung —
ready, perhaps, to cave in — above my head. Seized by a

ABOU SIM BEL. 305

sudden panic such as one feels in dreams, I tried to run ; but
my feet dragged, and the floor seemed to sink under them.
I felt I could not have called for help, though it had been to
save my life. It is unnecessary, perhaps, to add that the
mountain did not cave in, and that I had my fright for nothing.
It would have been a grand way of dying, all the same ; and
a still grander way of being buried.

My visits to the Great Temple were not always so dramatic.
I sometimes took Salame, who smoked cigarettes when not on
active duty, or held a candle while I sketched patterns of
cornices, head-dresses of Kings and Gods, designs of necklaces
and bracelets, heads of captives, and the like. Sometimes we
explored the side-chambers. Of these there are eight ; pitch-
dark, and excavated at all kinds of angles. Two or three are
surrounded by stone benches cut in the rock ; and in one the
hieroglyphic inscriptions are part cut, part sketched in black
and left unfinished. As this temple is entirely the work of
Rameses II, and betrays no sign of having been added to by
any of his successors, these evidences of incompleteness would
seem to show that the King died before the work was ended.

I was always under the impression that there were secret
places yet undiscovered in these dark chambers, and Salame
and I were always looking for them. At Denderah, at Edfil,
at Medinet Habu, at Philae,^ there have been found crypts in
the thickness of the walls and recesses under the pavements,
for the safe-keeping of treasure in time of danger. The rock-
cut temples must also have had their hiding-places ; and these
would doubtless take the form of concealed cells in the walls,
or under the floors, of the side-chambers.

To come out from these black holes into the twilight of
the Great Hall and see the landscape set, as it were, in the
ebon frame of the doorway, was alone worth the journey to
Abou Simbel. The sun being at such times in the west, the
river, the yellow sand-island, the palms and tamarisks opposite,
and the mountains of the eastern desert, were all flooded with
a glory of light and colour to which no pen or pencil could

^ A rich treasure of gold and silver rings was found by Ferlini, in 1834,
immMred in the wall of one of the pyramids of Merde, in Upper Nubia.
See Lepsius's Letters, translated by L. and J. HORNER, Bohn, 1853, p. 151.

3o6 ABOU SI MB EL.

possibly do justice. Not even the mountains of Moab in
Holman Hunt's " Scapegoat " were so warm with rose and
gold.

Thus our days passed at Abou Simbel ; the workers
working ; the idlers idling ; strangers from the outer world
now and then coming and going. The heat on shore was
great, especially in the sketching-tents ; but the north breeze
blew steadily every day from about an hour after sunrise till
an hour before sunset, and on board the dahabeeyah it was
always cool.

The Happy Couple took advantage of this good wind to
do a good deal of boating, and by judiciously timing their
excursions, contrived to use the tail of the day's breeze for
their trip out, and the strong arms of four good rowers to
bring them back again. In this way they managed to see
the little rock -cut Temple of Ferayg, which the rest of us
unfortunately missed. On another occasion they paid a visit
to a certain Sheyhk who lived at a village about two miles
south of Abou Simbel. He was a great man, as Nubian
magnates go. His name was Hassan Ebn Rashwan el Kashef,
and he was a grandson of that same old Hassan Kashef who
was vice -regent of Nubia in the days of Burckhardt and
Belzoni. He received our Happy Couple with distinguished
hospitality, killed a sheep in their honour, and entertained them
for more than three hours. The meal consisted of an endless
succession of dishes, all of which, like that bugbear of our
childhood, the hated Air with Variations, went on repeating
the same theme under a multitude of disguises ; and, whether
roast, boiled, stewed or minced, served on skewers, smothered
in rice, or drowned in sour milk, were always mutton au fond.

We now despaired of ever seeing a crocodile ; and but for
a trail that our men discovered on the island opposite, we
should almost have ceased to believe that there were crocodiles
in Egypt. The marks were quite fresh when we went to look
at them. The creature had been basking high and dry in the
sun, and this was the point at which he had gone down again
to the river. The damp sand at the water's edge had taken
the mould of his huge fleshy paws, and even of the jointed
armour of his tail, though this last impression was somewhat

ABOU S 1MB EL. 307

blurred by the final rush with which he had taken to the
water. I doubt if Robinson Crusoe, when he saw the famous
footprint on the shore, was more excited than we of the Philae
at sight of this genuine and undeniable trail.

As for the Idle Man, he flew at once to arms and made
ready for the fray He caused a shallow grave to be dug for
himself a few yards from the spot ; then went and lay in it
for hours together, morning after morning, under the full blaze
of the sun, — flat, patient, alert, — with his gun ready cocked,
and a Pall Mall Budget up his back. It was not his fault if
he narrowly escaped sunstroke, and had his labour for his
reward. That crocodile was too clever for him, and took care
never to come back.

Our sailors, meanwhile, though well pleased with an
occasional holiday, began to find Abou Simbel monotonous.
As long as the Bagstones stayed, the two crews met every
evening to smoke, and dance, and sing their quaint roundelays
together But when rumours came of wonderful things already
done this winter above Wady Halfeh — rumours that repre-
sented the Second Cataract as a populous solitude of crocodiles
— then our faithful consort slipped away one morning before
sunrise, and the Philae was left companionless.

At this juncture, seeing that the men's time hung heavy on
their hands, our Painter conceived the idea of setting them to
clean the face of the northernmost Colossus, still disfigured by
the plaster left on it when the great cast^ was taken by Mr.

* This cast, the property of the British Museum, is placed over a door
leading to the library at the end of the northern Vestibule, opposite the
staircase. I was informed by the late Mr. Bonomi that the mould was
made by Mr. Hay, who had with him an Italian assistant picked up in
Cairo. They took with them some barrels of plaster and a couple of
ladders, and contrived, with such spars and poles as belonged to the
dahabeeyah, to erect a scaffolding and a matted shelter for the plasterman.
The Colossus was at this time buried up to its chin in sand, which made
their task so much the easier. When the mould of the head was brought
to England, it was sent to Mr. Bonomi's studio, together with a mould of
the head of the Colossus at Mitrahenny, a mould of the apex of the fallen
obelisk at Karnak, and moulds of the wall -sculptures at Bayt- el -Welly.
Mr. Bonomi superintended the casting and placing of all these in the
Museum about three years after the moulds were made. This was at the
time when Mr. Hawkins held the post of Keeper of Antiquities. I

3o8

ABOU SIM BEL.

Hay more than half a century before. This happy thought
was promptly carried into effect. A scaffolding of spars and

CLEANING THE COLOSSUS.

oars was at once improvised, and the men, delighted as children
at play, were soon swarming all over the huge head, just as the

mention these details, not simply because they have a special interest for
all who are acquainted with Abou Simbel, but because a good deal of
misapprehension has prevailed on the subject, some travellers attributing
the disfigurement of the head to Lepsius, others to the Crystal Palace
Company, and so forth. Even so careful a writer as the late Miss
Martineau ascribes it, on hearsay, to Champollion.

ABOU SIM BEL. 309

carvers may have swarmed over it in the days when Rameses
was king.

All they had to do was to remove any small lumps that
might yet adhere to the surface, and then tint the white patches
with coffee. This they did with bits of sponge tied to the ends
of sticks ; but Refs Hassan, as a mark of dignity, had one of
the Painter's old brushes, of which he was immensely proud.

It took them three afternoons to complete the job ; and
we were all sorry when it came to an end. To see Reis
Hassan artistically touching up a gigantic nose almost as long
as himself; Riskalli and the cook-boy staggering to and fro
with relays of coffee, brewed " thick and slab " for the purpose ;
Salame perched cross-legged, like some complacent imp, on
the towering rim of the great pschent overhead ; the rest
chattering and skipping about the scaffolding like monkeys,
was, I will venture to say, a sight more comic than has ever
been seen at Abou Simbel before or since.

Rameses' appetite for coffee was prodigious. He consumed
I know not how many gallons a day. Our cook stood aghast
at the demand made upon his stores. Never before had he been
called upon to provide for a guest whose mouth measured
three feet and a half in width.

Still, the result justified the expenditure. The coffee
proved a capital match for the sandstone ; and though it was
not possible wholly to restore the uniformity of the original
surface, we at least succeeded in obliterating those ghastly
splotches, which for so many years have marred this beautiful
face as with the unsightliness of leprosy.

What with boating, fishing, lying in wait for crocodiles,
cleaning the colossus, and filling reams of thin letter paper to
friends at home, we got through the first week quickly enough
— the Painter and the Writer working hard, meanwhile, in their
respective ways ; the Painter on his big canvas in front of the
Temple ; the Writer shifting her little tent as she listed.

Now, although the most delightful occupation in life is
undoubtedly sketching, it must be admitted that the sketcher
at Abou Simbel works under difficulties. Foremost among
these comes the difficulty of position. The great Temple
stands within about twenty -five yards of the brink of the

3IO ABOU SIMBEL.

bank, and the lesser Temple within as many feet ; so that to
get far enough from one's subject is simply impossible The
present Writer sketched the small Temple from the deck of the
dahabeeyah ; there being no point of view obtainable on shore.

Next comes the difficulty of colour. Everything, except
the sky and the river, is yellow — yellow, that is to say, " with a
difference ;" yellow ranging through every gradation of orange,
maize, apricot, gold, and buff. The mountains are sandstone ;
the Temples are sandstone ; the sandslope is powdered sand-
stone from the sandstone desert. In all these objects, the scale
of colour is necessarily the same. Even the shadows, glowing
with reflected light, give back tempered repetitions of the
dominant hue. Hence it follows that he who strives, however
humbly, to reproduce the facts of the scene before him, is
compelled, bon gr^, vial gr^, to execute what some of our
young painters would now-a-days call a Symphony in Yellow.

Lastly, there are the minor inconveniences of sun, sand,
wind, and flies. The whole place radiates heat, and seems
almost to radiate light. The glare from above and the glare
from below are alike intolerable. Dazzled, blinded, unable to
even look at his subject without the aid of smoke-coloured
glasses, the sketcher whose tent is pitched upon the sandslope
over against the great Temple enjoys a foretaste of cremation.

When the wind blows from the north (which at this time
of the year is almost always) the heat is perhaps less distress-
ing, but the sand is maddening. It fills your hair, your eyes,
your water-bottles ; silts up your colour-box ; dries into your
skies ; and reduces your Chinese white to a gritty paste the
colour of salad-dressing. As for the flies, they have a morbid
appetite for water-colours. They follow your wet brush along
the paper, leave their legs in the yellow ochre, and plunge with
avidity into every little pool of cobalt as it is mixed ready for
use. Nothing disagrees with them ; nothing poisons them —
not even olive-green.

It was a delightful time, however — delightful alike for those
who worked and those who rested — and these small troubles
counted for nothing in the scale. Yet it was pleasant, all the
same, to break away for a day or two, an"d be off to Wady
Halfeh.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE SECOND CATARACT.

A FRESH breeze, a full sail, and the consciousness of a
holiday well earned, carried us gaily along from Abou Simbel
to Wady Halfeh. We started late in the afternoon of the
first day, made about twelve miles before the wind dropped,
and achieved the remaining twenty-eight miles before noon the
next day. It was our last trip on the Nile under canvas. At
Wady Halfeh the Philae was doomed to be dismantled. The
big sail that had so long been our pride and delight would
there be taken down, and our good boat, her grace and swift-
ness gone at one fell swoop, would become a mere lumbering
barge, more suggestive of civic outings on the Thames than of
Cleopatra's galley.

For some way beyond Abou Simbel, the western bank is
fringed by a long line of volcanic mountains, as much alike
in height, size, and shape, as a row of martello towers. They
are divided from one another by a series of perfectly uniform
sand-drifts ; while on the rounded top of each mountain, thick
as the currants on the top of a certain cake, known to school-
boys by the endearing name of " black-caps," lies a layer of
the oddest black stones in the world. Having more than
once been to the top of the rock of Abshek (which is the first
large mountain of the chain, and strewn in the same way) we
recognised the stones, and knew what they were like. In
colour they are purplish black, tinged here and there with dull
red. They ring like clinkstone when struck, and in shape are
most fantastic. L. picked up some like petrified bunches of

312 THE SECOND CATARACT.

grapes. Others are twisted and writhen like the Vesuvian
lava of 187 1. They lie loose upon the surface, and are of
all sizes ; some being as small as currants, and others as large
as quartern loaves. Speaking as one having no kind of
authority, I should say that these stones are unquestionably
of fiery parentage. One seems to see how, boiling and bubbling
in a state of fusion, they must have been suddenly checked by
contact with some cooler medium.

Where the chain ends, about three or four miles above
Abou Simbel, the vieu' widens, and a host of outlying mountains
are seen scattered over an immense plain reaching for miles
into the western desert. On the eastern bank, Kalat Adda,^ —

1 "A castle, resembling in size and form that of Ibrim ; it bears the
name of Kalat Adda ; it has been abandoned many years, being entirely
surrounded by barren rocks. Part of its ancient wall, similar in construc-
tion to that of Ibrim, still remains. The habitations are built partly of
stone, and partly of bricks. On the most elevated spot in the small town,
eight or ten grey granite columns of small dimensions lie on the ground,
with a few capitals near them of clumsy Greek architecture." — Burckhardt's
Travels in Nubia, 18 19, p. 38.

In a curious Arabic history of Nubia written in the tenth century a.d.
by one Abdallah ben Ahmed ben Solalm of Assuan, fragments of which
are preserved in the great work of Makrizy, quoted by Burckhardt and
E. Quatremere (see footnote, p. 224), there occurs the following remark-
able passage : " In this province (Nubia) is situated the city of Bedjrasch,
capital of Maris, the fortress of Ibrim, and another place called Adwa,
which has a port, and is, they say, the birthplace of the sage Lokman
and of Dhoul Noun. There is to be seen there a magnificent Birbeh." —
("On y voit un Berba magnifique "). — Memoires Giographiques sur
PEgypte, etc. E. Quatremere, Paris, 181 1 ; vol. ii. p. 8.

If Adwa and Adda are one and the same, it is possible that in this
passage we find preserved the only comparatively modem indication of
some great rock-cut temple, the entrance to which is now entirely covered
by the sand. It is clear that neither Abou Simbel (which is on the
opposite bank, and some three or four miles north of Adda) nor Ferayg
(which is also some way off, and quite a small place) can here be intended.
That another temple exists somewhere between Abou Simbel and Wady
Halfeh, and is yet to be discovered, seems absolutely certain from the
tenor of a large stela sculptured on the rock a few paces north of the
smaller temple at Abou Simbel. This stela, which is one of the most
striking and elaborate there, represents an Egyptian gateway surmounted
by the winged globe, and shows Rameses II enthroned, and receiving the
homage of a certain Prince whose name, as translated by Rosellini, is
Rameses-Neniscti-Habai. The inscription, which is in sixteen columns
and perfectly preserved, records the titles and praises of the King, and

THE SECOND CATARACT. 313

a huge, rambling Roman citadel, going to solitary ruin on the
last water-washed precipice to the left — brings the opposite
range to a like end, and abuts on a similar plain, also scattered
over with detached peaks. The scene here is desolately
magnificent. A large island covered with palms divides the
Nile in two branches, each of which looks as wide as the whole
river. An unbounded distance opens away to the silvery
horizon. On the banks there is no verdure ; neither is there
any sign of human toil. Nothing lives, nothing moves, save
the wind and the river.

Of all the strange peaks we have yet seen, the mountains
hereabout are the strangest. Alone or in groups, they start
up here and there from the deserts on both sides, like the
pieces on a chess-board. They are for the most part conical ;
but they are not extinct craters, such as are the volcanic cones
of Korosko and Dakkeh. Seeing how they all rose to about
the same height, and were alike capped with that mysterious
conche of shining black stones, the Writer could not help
fancying that, like the isolated Rocher de Corneille and
Rocher de St. Michel at Puy, they might be but fragments of
a rocky crust, rent and swept away at some infinitely remote
period of the world's history, and that the level of their present
summits might represent perhaps the ancient level of the
plain.

states how "he hath made a monumental abode for Horus, his father,
Lord of Ha'm, excavating in the bowels of the rock of Ha'm to make him
a habitation of many ages." We know nothing of the Rock of Ha'm
(rendered Sciam by Rosellini), but it should no doubt be sought somewhere
between Abou Simbel and Wady Halfeh. " Qual sito precisamente dinotisi
in questo nome di Sciam, io non saprei nel presente stato delle cose
determinare : credo peraltro secondo varie luoghi delle iscrizioni che lo
ricordano, che fosse situato sull' una o I'altra sponda del Nilo, nel paese
compreso tra Wadi-halfa e Ibsambul, o poco oltre. E qui dovrebbe
trovarsi il nominato speco di Horus, fino al presente occulto a noi." —
Rosellini, Letterpress to Moyiumenii Storici, vol. iii. part ii. p. 184.
It would hence appear that the Rock of Ha'm is mentioned in other
inscriptions.

The distance between Abou Simbel and Wady Halfeh is only forty
miles, and the likely places along the banks are but few. Would not the
discovery of this lost Temple be an enterprise worthier the ambition of
tourists, than the extermination of such few crocodiles as yet linger north
of the Second Cataract .''

314 THE SECOND CATARACT.

As regards form, they are weird enough for the wildest
geological theories. All taper more or less towards the top.
One is four-sided, like a pyramid ; another, in shape a truncated
cone, looks as if crowned with a pagoda summer-house ; a
third seems to be surmounted by a mosque and cupola ; a
fourth is scooped out in tiers of arches ; a fifth is crowned,
apparently, with a cairn of piled stones ; and so on with varia-
tions as endless as they are fantastic. A geologist might
perhaps account for these caprices by showing how fire, and
earthquake, and deluge, had here succeeded each other ; and
how, after being first covered with volcanic stones and then
split into chasms, the valleys thus opened had by and by been
traversed by torrents which wore away the softer parts of the
rock and left the harder standing.

Some way beyond Kalat Adda, when the Abou Simbel
range and the palm island have all but vanished in the distance,
and the lonely peak, called the Mountain of the Sun (Gebel
esh-Shems), has been left far behind, we come upon a new
wonder — namely, upon two groups of scattered tumuli, one on
the eastern, one on the western bank. Not volcanic forms
these ; not even accidental forms, if one may venture to form
an opinion from so far off They are of various sizes ; some
little, some big ; all perfectly round and smooth, and covered
with a rich greenish-brown alluvial soil. How did they come
there ? Who made them ? What did they contain ? The
Roman ruin close by — the 240,000^ deserters who must have
passed this way — the Egyptian and Ethiopian armies that
certainly poured their thousands along these very banks, and
might have fought many a battle on this open plain, suggest
all kinds of possibilities, and fill one's head with visions of
buried arms, and jewels, and cinerary urns. We are more
than half-minded to stop the boat and land that very moment ;
but are content on second thoughts with promising ourselves
that we will at least excavate one of the smaller hillocks on
our way back.

And now, the breeze freshening and the dahabeeyah tearing
gallantly along, we leave the tumuli behind and enter upon a
still more desolate region, where the mountains recede farther
^ See footnote, p. 290.

THE SECOND CATARACT. 315

than ever, and the course of the river is interrupted by perpetual
sandbanks.

On one of these sandbanks, just a few yards above the
edge of the water, lay a log of drift-wood, apparently a battered
old palm trunk, with some remnants of broken branches yet
clinging to it ; such an object, in short, as my American friends
would very properly call a " snag."

Our pilot leaned forward on the tiller, put his finger to his
lip, and whispered : —

" Crocodilo ! "

The Painter, the Idle Man, the Writer, were all on deck,
and not one believed him. They had seen too many of these
snags already, and were not going to let themselves again be
excited about nothing.

The pilot pointed to the cabin where L. and the Little Lady
were indulging in that minor vice called afternoon tea.

" Sitteh ! " said he, " call Sitteh ! Crocodilo ! "

We examined the object through our glasses. We laughed
the pilot to scorn. It was the worst imitation of a crocodile
that we had yet seen.

All at once the palm-trunk lifted up its head, cocked its
tail, found its legs, set off running, wriggling, undulating down
the slope with incredible rapidity, and was gone before we
could utter an exclamation.

We three had a bad time when the other two came up and
found that we had seen our first crocodile without them.

A sandbank which we passed next morning was scored all
over with fresh trails, and looked as if it had been the scene of
a crocodile-parliament. There must have been at least twenty
or thirty members present at the sitting ; and the freshness of
the marks showed that they had only just dispersed.

A keen and cutting wind carried us along the last thirty
miles of our journey. We had supposed that the farther south
we penetrated, the hotter we should find the climate ; yet now,
strange to say, we were shivering in seal-skins, under the most
brilliant sky in the world, and in a latitude more southerly than
that of Mecca or Calcutta. It was some compensation, how-
ever, to run at full speed past the dullest of Nile scenery, seeing
only sandbanks in the river ; sand-hills and sand-flats on either

3'6

THE SECOND CATARACT.

hand ; a disused shadoof or a skeleton boat rotting at the water's
edge ; a wind-tormented Dom-palm struggling for existence on
the brink of the bank.

At a fatal corner about six miles below Wady Halfeh, we
passed a melancholy flotilla of dismantled dahabeeyahs — the
Fostat, the Zenobia, the Alice, the Mansoorah — all alike weather-
bound and laid up helplessly against the wind. The Mansoorah,
with Captain and Mrs. E. on board, had been three days doing
these six miles : at which rate of progress they might reason-
ably hope to reach Cairo in about a year and a month.

WADV IIALFEH

The palms of Wady Halfeh, blue with distance, came into
sight at the next bend ; and by noon the Philae was once more
moored alongside the Bagstones under a shore crowded with
cangias, covered with bales and packing cases, and, like the
shores of Mahatta and Assuan, populous with temporary huts.
For here it is that traders going by water embark and disem-
bark on their way to and fro between Dongola and the First
Cataract.

There were three temples — or at all events three ancient
Egyptian buildings — once upon a time on the western bank

THE SECOND CATARACT. 317

over against Wady Halfeh. Now there are a few broken pillars,
a solitary fragment of brick pylon, some remains of a flight of
stone steps leading down to the river, and a wall of enclosure
overgrown with wild pumpkins. These ruins, together with a
rambling native Khan and a noble old sycamore, form a
picturesque group backed by amber sand-cliffs, and mark the
site of a lost city ^ belonging to the early days of Usurtesen III.

The Second, or Great Cataract, begins a little way above
Wady Halfeh and extends over a distance of many miles. It
consists, like the First Cataract, of a succession of rocks and
rapids, and is skirted for the first five miles or so by the sand-
cliff ridge which, as I have said, forms a background to the
ruins just opposite Wady Halfeh. This ridge terminates
abruptly in the famous precipice known as the Rock of Abusir.
Only adventurous travellers bound for Dongola or Khartum
go beyond this point ; and they, for the most part, take the
shorter route across the desert from Korosko. L. and the
Writer would fain have hired camels and pushed on as far as
Semneh ; which is a matter of only two days' journey from
Wady Halfeh, and, for people provided with sketching tents, is
one of the easiest of inland excursions.

One may go to the Rock of Abusir by land or by water.
The Happy Couple and the Writer took two native boatmen
versed in the intricacies of the Cataract ; and went in the
felucca. L. and the Painter preferred donkeying. Given a
good breeze from the right quarter, there is, as regards time,
but little to choose between the two routea No one, however,
who has approached the Rock of Abusir by water, and seen it
rise like a cathedral front from the midst of that labyrinth of
rocky islets — some like clusters of basaltic columns, some
crowned with crumbling ruins, some bleak and bare, some green
with wild pomegranate trees — can doubt which is the more
picturesque.

1 " Un Second Temple, plus grand, mais tout aussi ddtruit que le pre-
cedent, existe un peu plus au sud, c'etait le grand temple de la ville
Egyptienne de Beheni, qui exista sur cet emplacement, et qui d'apr^s
r^tendu des debris de poteries r^pandus sur la plaine aujourdhui deserte,
parait avoir ^te assez grande." — Champollion, Lettres ecrites cHEgypte^ etc.,
ed. 1868 ; Letter ix.

3i8 THE SECOND CATARACT

Landing among the tamarisks at the foot of the cliff, we
come to the spreading skirts of a sand-drift steeper and more
fatiguing to climb than the sand-drift at Abou Simbel. We
do climb it, however, though somewhat sulkily, and finding
the donkey-party perched upon the top, are comforted with
draughts of ice-cold lemonade, brought in a kullah from Wady
Halfeh.

The summit of the rock is a mere ridge, steep and over-
hanging towards east and south, and carved all over with auto-
graphs in stone. Some few of these are interesting ; but for
the most part they record only the visits of the illustrious-obscure.
We found Belzoni's name ; but looked in vain for the signatures
of Burckhardt, Champollion, Lepsius, and Ampere.

Owing to the nature of the ground and the singular clear-
ness of the atmosphere, the view from this point seemed to me
to be the most extensive I had ever looked upon. Yet the
height of the rock of Abusir is comparatively insignificant. It
would count but as a mole-hill, if measured against some Alpine
summits of my acquaintance. I doubt whether it is as lofty as
even the Great Pyramid. It is, however, a giddy place to look
down from, and seems higher than it is.

It is hard, now that we are actually here, to realise that
this is the end of our journey. The Cataract — an immense
multitude of black and shining islets, among which the river,
divided into hundreds of separate channels, spreads far and
wide for a distance, it is said, of more than sixteen miles, —
foams at our feet. Foams, and frets, and falls ; gushing smooth
and strong where its course is free ; murmuring hoarsely where
it is interrupted ; now hurrying ; now loitering ; here eddying
in oily circles ; there lying in still pools unbroken by a ripple ;
everywhere full of life, full of voices ; everywhere shining to the
sun. Northwards, where it winds away towards Abou Simbel,
we see all the fantastic mountains of yesterday on the horizon.
To the east, still bounded by out-liers of the same disconnected
chain, lies a rolling waste of dark and stony wilderness, trenched
with innumerable valleys through which flow streams of sand.
On the western side, the continuity of the view is interrupted
by the ridge which ends with Abusir. Southwards, the Libyan
desert reaches away in one vast undulating plain ; tawny, arid,

THE SECOND CATARACT 31P

monotonous'; all sun ; all sand ; lit here and there with arrowy
flashes of the Nile. Farthest of all, pale but distinct, on the
outermost rim of the world, rise two mountain summits, one
long, one dome -like. Our Nubians tell us that these are
the mountains of Dongola. Comparing our position with
that of the Third Cataract as it appears upon the map, we
come to the conclusion that these ghost- like silhouettes are
the summits of Mount Fogo ^ and Mount Arambo — two
apparently parallel mountains situate on opposite sides of the
river about ten miles below Hannek, and consequently about
145 miles, as the bird flies, from the spot on which we are
standing.

In all this extraordinary panorama, so wild, so weird, s(i
desolate, there is nothing really beautiful, except the colour.
But the colour is transcendent. Never, even in Egypt, have 1
seen anything so tender, so transparent, so harmonious. I
shut my eyes, and it all comes before me. I see the amber of
the sands ; the pink and pearly mountains ; the Cataract rocks,
all black and purple and polished ; the dull grey palms that
cluster here and there upon the larger islands ; the vivid verdure
of the tamarisks and pomegranates ; the Nile, a greenish brown
flecked with yeasty foam ; over all, the blue and burning sky,
permeated with light, and palpitating with sunshine.

I made no sketch. I felt that it would be ludicrous to
attempt it. And I feel now that any endeavour to put the
scene into words is a mere presumptuous effort to describe the
indescribable. Words are useful instruments ; but, like the
etching needle and the burin, they stop short at form. They
cannot translate colour.

If a traveller pressed for time asked me whether he should
or should not go as far as the Second Cataract, I think I
should recommend him to turn back from Abou Simbel. The
trip must cost four days ; and if the wind should happen to be
unfavourable either way, it may cost six or seven. The forty
miles of river that have to be twice traversed are the dullest on
the Nile ; the Cataract is but an enlarged and barren edition
of the Cataract between Assuan and Philae ; and the great

1 Mount Fogo, as shown upon Keith Johnston's map of Egypt and
Nubia, would seem to be identical with the All Bersi of Lepsius.

320 THE SECOND CATARACT.

view, as I have said, has not that kind of beauty which attracts
the general tourist.

It has an interest, however, beyond and apart from that of
beauty. It rouses one's imagination to a sense of the great-
ness of the Nile. We look across a world of desert, and see
the river still coming from afar. We have reached a point at
which all that is habitable and familiar comes abruptly to an end.
Not a village, not a bean-field, not a shaduf, not a sakkieh, is to
be seen in the plain below. There is no sail on those dangerous
waters. There is no moving creature on those pathless sands.
But for the telegraphic wires stalking, ghost- like, across the
desert, it would seem as if we had touched the limit of civilisa-
tion, and were standing on the threshold of a land unexplored.

Yet for all this, we feel as if we were at only the beginning
of the mighty river. We have journeyed well-nigh a thousand
miles against the stream ; but what is that to the distance
which still lies between us and the Great Lakes ? And how
far beyond the Great Lakes must we seek for the Source that
is even yet undiscovered ?

We stayed at Wady Halfeh but one night, and paid but
one visit to the Cataract. We saw no crocodiles, though they
are still plentiful among these rocky islets. The M. B.'s, who
had been here a week, were full of crocodile stories, and of
Alfred's deeds of arms. He had stalked and shot a monster,
two days before our arrival ; but the creature had rushed into
the water when hit, waving its tail furiously above its head, and
had neither been seen nor heard of since.

Like Achilles, the crocodile has but one vulnerable spot ;
and this is a small unarmoured patch behind the forearm. He
will take a good deal of killing even there, unless the bullet
finds its way to a vital part, or is of the diabolical kind called
" explosive." Even when mortally wounded, he seldom drops
on the spot. With his last strength, he rushes to the water
and dies at the bottom.

After three days the carcase rises and floats, and our friends
were now waiting in order that Alfred might bag his big game.
Too often, however, the poor brute either crawls into a hole,
or, in his agony, becomes entangled among weeds and comes
up no more. For one crocodile bagged, a dozen regain the

THE SECOND CATARACT. 321

river, and after lingering miserably under water, die out of
sight and out of reach of the sportsman.

While we were climbing the Rock of Abusir, our men
were busy taking down the big sail and preparing the Philae
for her long and ignominious journey down stream. We came
back to find the mainyard laid along like a roof-tree above our
heads ; the sail rolled up in a huge ball and resting on the
roof of the kitchen ; the small aftersail and yard hoisted on
the mainmast ; the oars lashed six on each side ; and the
lower deck a series of yawning chasms, every alternate plank
being taken up so as to form seats and standing places for the
rowers.

Thus dismantled, the dahabeeyah becomes, in fact, a galley.
Her oars are now her chief motive power ; and a crew of steady
rowers (having always the current in their favour) can do thirty
miles a day. When, however, a good breeze blows from the
south, the small sail and the current are enough to carry the
boat well along ; and then the men reserve their strength for
rowing by night, when the wind has dropped. Sometimes,
when it is a dead calm and the rowers need rest, the dahabeeyah
is left to her own devices, and floats with the stream — now
waltzing ludicrously in the middle of the river ; now drifting
sidewise like Mr. Winkle's horse ; now sidling up to the east
bank ; now changing her mind and blundering over to the
west ; making upon an average about a mile and a half or
two miles an hour, and presenting a pitiful spectacle of helpless
imbecility. At other times, however, the head wind blows so
hard that neither oars nor current avail ; and then there is
nothing for it but to lie under the bank and wait for better
times.

This was our sad case in going back to Abou Simbel.
Having struggled with no little difficulty through the first five-
and -twenty miles, we came to a dead lock about half-way
between Faras and Gebel-esh-Shems. Carried forward by
the stream, driven back by the wind, buffeted by the waves,
and bumped incessantly by the rocking to and fro of the
felucca, our luckless Philae, after oscillating for hours within
the space of a mile, was run at last into a sheltered nook, and
there left in peace till the wind should change or drop.

322 THE SECOND CATARACT.

Imprisoned here for a day and a half, we found ourselves,
fortunately, within reach of the tumuli which we had already
made up our minds to explore. Making first for those on the
east bank, we took with us in the felucca four men to row and
dig, a fire-shovel, a small hatchet, an iron bar, and a large
wicker basket, which were the only implements we possessed.
What we wanted both then and afterwards, and what no
dahabeeyah should ever be without, were two or three good
spades, a couple of picks, and a crowbar.

Climbing to the top of one of the highest of these hillocks,
we began by surveying the ground. The desert here is firm
to the tread, flat, compact, and thickly strewn with pebbles.
Of the fine yellow sand which characterises the Libyan bank,
there is little to be seen, and that little lies like snow in
drifts and clefts and hollows, as if carried thither by the wind.
The tumuli, however, are mounded of pure alluvial mould,
smooth, solid, and symmetrical. We counted thirty -four of
all sizes, from five to about five -and -thirty feet in height,
and saw at least as many more on the opposite side of the
river.

Selecting one of about eight feet high, we then set the
sailors to work ; and although it was impossible, with so few
men and such insufficient tools, to cut straight through the
centre of the mound, we at all events succeeded in digging
down to a solid substratum of lumps of crude clay, evidently
moulded by hand.

Whether these formed only the foundation of the tumulus,
or concealed a grave excavated below the level of the desert,
we had neither time nor means to ascertain. It was something,
at all events, to have convinced ourselves that the mounds
were artificial.^

As we came away, we met a Nubian peasant trudging
northwards. He was leading a sorry camel ; had a white

1 On referring to Col. H. Vyse's Voyage into Upper Egypt, etc., I see
that he also opened one of these tumuli, but " found no indication of an
artificial construction." I can only conclude that he did not carry his
excavation low enough. As it is difficult to suppose the tumuli made for
nothing, I cannot help believing that they would repay a more systematic
investigation.

THE SECOND CATARACT. 323

cockerel under his arm ; and was followed by a frightened
woman, who drew her shawl over her face and cowered behind
him, at sight of the Ingleezeh.

We asked the man what the mounds were, and who made
them ; but he shook his head, and said they had been there
' from old time." We then inquired by what name they were
known in these parts ; to which, urging his camel forward, he
replied hesitatingly that they had a name, but that he had
forgotten it.

Having gone a little way, however, he presently turned
back, saying that he now remembered all about it, and that
they were called " The Horns of Yackma."

More than this we could not get from him. Who Yackma
was, or how he came to have horns, or why his horns should
take the form of tumuli, was more than he could tell or we
could guess.

We gave him a small backshish, however, in return for this
mysterious piece of information, and went our way with all
possible speed ; intending to row across and see the mounds
on the opposite bank before sunset. But we had not calcu-
lated upon the difficulty of either threading our way among
a chain of sandbanks, or going at least two miles farther
north, so as to get round into the navigable channel at the
other side. We of course tried the shorter way, and after
running aground some three or four times, had to give it up,
hoist our little sail, and scud homewards as fast as the wind
would carry us.

The coming back thus, after an excursion in the felucca, is
one of the many pleasant things that one has to remember of
the Nile. The sun has set ; the afterglow has faded ; the stars
are coming out. Leaning back with a satisfied sense of some-
thing seen or done, one listens to the old dreamy chant of the
rowers, and to the ripple under the keel. The palms, mean-
while, c^lide past, and are seen in bronzed relief against the sky.
Presently the big boat, all glittering with lights, looms up out
of the dusk. A cheery voice hails from the poop. We glide
under the bows. Half-a-dozen smiling brown faces bid us
welcome, and as many pairs of brown hands are outstretched
to help us up the side. A savoury smell is wafted from the

324

THE SECOND CATARACT.

kitchen ; a pleasant vision of the dining- saloon, with table
ready spread and lamps ready lit, flashes upon us through the
open doorway. We are at home once more. Let us eat,
drink, rest, and be merry ; for to-morrow the hard work of
sifrht-sceinsr and sketching begins again.

THK KI>C K OK ABUSIK.

CHAPTKR XVIII.

DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIMBEL.

Wf rame back to find a fleet of dahabeeyahs ranged along
S shorTat Abou Simbel, and no less than three sketchmg
tents in occupation of the ground. One of these wh^h
happened to be pitched on the precise spot vacated by ou
Ster was courteously shifted to make way for the or.gma
fenant ; and in the course of a couple of hours we were all as
Tu h at home as if we had not been away for half--day_

Here meanwhile, was our old acquaintance the Fostat
wlthVparty of gentlemen .yonder the Z^nob.a.^all la .es ,

stia flyfu^thr arf 'an'd stHF^- ">« Mansoorah bound
p s :;iyL' he Faytim. To these were next ay adde th
Ebers, with a couple of German savants; and the Bagstones,
welcome back from Wady Halfeh.

What with arrivals and departures, exchange of v.sits
exhibitions of sketches, and sociabilities of various kmds, we
had now quite a gay time. The Phite gave a dmner-party
a^d ?an asia under the very noses of the coloss,, and every
evening there was drumming and howling enough among the
alsembied crews to raise the ghosts of Rameses and all h.s
Orns This was pleasant enough while it lasted but when
?he strangers dropped off one by one. and at the end of three
days we we,e once more alone, I think we were not sorry.
The place was, somehow, too solemn for

" Singing, laughing, ogling, and all that.'-
It was by comparing our watches with those of the

326 DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIM BEL.

travellers whom we met at Abou Simbel, that we now found
out how hopelessly our timekeepers and theirs had gone astray.
We had been altering ours continually ever since leaving
Cairo ; but the sun was as continually putting them wrong
again, so that we had lost all count of the true time. The
first words with which we now greeted a newcomer were —
" Do you know what o'clock it is ? " To which the stranger as
invariably replied that it was the very question he was himself
about to ask. The confusion became at last so great that,
finding that we had about eleven hours of day to thirteen
of night, we decided to establish an arbitrary canon ; so we
called it seven when the sun rose, and six when it set, which
answered every purpose.

It was between two and four o'clock, according to this
time of ours, that the Southern Cross was now visible every
morning. It is undoubtedly best seen at Abou Simbel. The
river is here very wide, and just where the constellation rises
there is an opening in the mountains on the eastern bank, so
that these four fine stars, though still low in the heavens, are
seen in a free space of sky. If they make, even so, a less
magnificent appearance than one has been led to expect, it is
probably because we see them from too low a point of view.
To say that a constellation is foreshortened sounds absurd ;
yet that is just what is the matter with the Southern Cross at
Abou Simbel. Viewed at an angle of about 30°, it necessarily
looks distort and dim. If seen burning in the zenith, it would
no doubt come up to the level of its reputation.

It was now the fifth day after our return from Wady
Halfeh, when an event occurred that roused us to an unwonted
pitch rf excitement, and kept us at high pressure throughout
the rest of our time.

The day was Sunday ; the date February i6th, 1874 ; the
time, according to Philae reckoning, about eleven A.M., when
the Painter, enjoying his seventh day's holiday after his own
fashion, went strolling about among the rocks. He happened
to turn his steps southwards, and, passing the front of the
Great Temple, climbed to the top of a little shapeless mound
of fallen cliff, and sand, and crude -brick wall, just against
the corner where the mountain slopes down to the river.

DISCOVERIES AT ABO U SIM BEL, 327

Immediately round this corner, looking almost due south, and
approachable by only a narrow ledge of rock, are two votive
tablets sculptured and painted, both of the thirty-eighth year
of Rameses II. We had seen these from the river as we came
back from Wady Halfeh, and had remarked how fine the view
must be from that point. Beyond the fact that they are
coloured, and that the colour upon them is still bright, there is
nothing remarkable about these inscriptions. There are many
such at Abou Simbel. Our Painter did not, therefore, come
here to examine the tablets ; he was attracted solely by the
view.

Turning back presently, his attention was arrested by some
much mutilated sculptures on the face of the rock, a few yards
nearer the south buttress of the Temple. He had seen these
sculptures before — so, indeed, had I, when wandering about
that first day in search of a point of view — without especially
remarking them. The relief was low ; the execution slight ;
and the surface so broken away that only a few confused out-
lines remained.

The thing that now caught the Painter's eye, however, was
a long crack running transversely down the face of the rock.
It was such a crack as might have been caused, one would say,
by blasting.

He stooped — cleared the sand away a little with his hand
— observed that the crack widened — poked in the point of his
stick ; and found that it penetrated to a depth of two or three
feet. Even then, it seemed to him to stop, not because it
encountered any obstacle, but because the crack was not wide
enough to admit the thick end of the stick.

This surprised him. No mere fault in the natural rock, he
thought, would go so deep. He scooped away a little more
sand ; and still the cleft widened. He introduced the stick a
second time. It was a long palm-stick like an alpenstock, and
it measured about five feet in length. When he probed the
cleft with it this second time, it went in freely up to where
he held it in his hand — that is to say, to a depth of quite
four feet.

Convinced now that there was some hidden cavity in the
rock, he carefully examined the surface. There were yet

328 DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SLMBEL.

visible a few hieroglyphic characters and part of two
cartouches, as well as some battered outlines of what had
once been figures. The heads of these figures were gone (the
face of the rock, with whatever may have been sculptured upon
it, having come away bodily at this point), while from the
waist downwards they were hidden under the sand. Only
some hands and arms, in short, could be made out.

They were the hands and arms, apparently, of four figures ;
two in the centre of the composition, and two at the extremi-
ties. The two centre ones, which seemed to be back to back,
probably represented gods ; the outer ones, worshippers.

All at once, it flashed upon the Painter that he had seen
this kind of group many a time before — and generally over a
doorivay.

Feeling sure now that he was on the brink of a discovery,
he came back ; fetched away Salame and Mehemet Ali ; and,
without saying a syllable to any one, set to work with these
two to scrape away the sand at the spot where the crack
widened.

Meanwhile, the luncheon bell having rung thrice, we
concluded that the Painter had rambled off somewhere into
the desert ; and so sat down without him. Towards the close
of the meal, however, came a pencilled note, the contents of
which ran as follows : —

" Pray come immediately — I have found the entrance to a
tomb. Please send some sandwiches — A. M'C."

To follow the messenger at once to the scene of action
was the general impulse. In less than ten minutes we were
there, asking breathless questions, peeping in through the fast-
widening aperture, and helping to clear away the sand.

All that Sunday afternoon, heedless of possible sunstroke,
unconscious of fatigue, we toiled upon our hands and knees, as
for bare life, under the burning sun. We had all the crew up,
working like tigers. Every one helped ; even the dragoman
and the two maids. More than once, when we paused for a
moment's breathing space, we said to each other: "If those
at home could see us, what would they say !"

And now, more than ever, we felt the need of implements.
With a spade or two and a wheelbarrow, we could have done

DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIM BEL. 329

wonders ; but with only one small fire-shovel, a birch broom, a
couple of charcoal baskets, and about twenty pairs of hands, we
were poor indeed. What was wanted in means, however, was
made up in method. Some scraped away the sand ; some
gathered it into baskets ; some carried the baskets to the edge
of the cliff, and emptied them into the river. The Idle Man
distinguished himself by scooping out a channel where the slope
was steepest ; which greatly facilitated the work. Emptied
down this shoot and kept continually going, the sand poured
off in a steady stream like water.

Meanwhile the opening grew rapidly larger. When we
first came up — that is, when the Painter and the two sailors
had been working on it for about an hour — we found a hole
scarcely as large as one's hand, through which it was just
possible to catch a dim glimpse of painted walls within. By
sunset, the top of the doorway was laid bare, and where the
crack ended in a large triangular fracture, there was an
aperture about a foot and a half square, into which Mehcmet Ali
was the first to squeeze his way. We passed him in a candle
and a box of matches ; but he came out again directly, saying
that it was a most beautiful BirbeJi, and quite light within.

The Writer wriggled in next. She found herself looking
down from the top of a sandslcpe into a small square chamber.
This sand-drift, which here rose to within a foot and a half of
the top of the doorway, was helped to the ceiling in the corner
behind the door, and thence sloped steeply down, completely
covering the floor. There was light enough to see every detail
distinctly — the painted frieze running round just under the
ceiling ; the bas-relief sculptures on the walls, gorgeous with
unfaded colour ; the smooth sand, pitted near the top, where
Mehemet Ali had trodden, but undisturbed elsewhere by human
foot ; the great gap in the middle of the ceiling, where the rock
had given way ; the fallen fragments on the floor, now almost
buried in sand.

Satisfied that the place was absolutely fresh and untouched,
the Writer crawled out, and the others, one by one, crawled in.
When each had seen it in turn, the opening was barricaded for
the night ; the sailors being forbidden to enter it, lest they
should injure the decorations.

330 DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIMBEL.

That evening was held a solemn council, whereat it was
decided that Talhamy and Reifs Hassan should go to-morrow
to the nearest village, there to engage the services of fifty able-
bodied natives. With such help, we calculated that the place
might easily be cleared in two days. If it was a tomb, we
hoped to discover the entrance to the mummy pit below ; if
but a small chapel, or Speos, like those at Ibrim, we should at
least have the satisfaction of seeing all that it contained in the
way of sculptures and inscriptions.

This was accordingly done ; but we worked again next
morning just the same, till mid-day. Our native contingent,
numbering about forty men, then made their appearance in a
rickety old boat, the bottom of which was half full of water.

They had been told to bring implements ; and they did
bring such as they had — two broken oars to dig with, some
baskets, and a number of little slips of planking which, being
tied between two pieces of rope and drawn along the surface,
acted as scrapers, and were useful as far as they went. Squat-
ting in double file from the entrance of the Speos to the edge
of the cliff, and to the burden of a rude chant propelling these
improvised scrapers, the men began by clearing a path to the
doorway. This gave them work enough for the afternoon.
At sunset, when they dispersed, the path was scooped out to a
depth of four feet, like a miniature railway cutting between
embankments of sand.

Next morning came the Sheykh in person, with his two
sons and a following of a hundred men. This was so many
more than we had bargained for, that we at once foresaw a
scheme to extort money. The Sheykh, however, proved to be
that same Rashwan Ebn Hassan el Kashef, by whom the
Happy Couple had been so hospitably entertained about a
fortnight before ; we therefore received him with honour, invited
him to luncheon, and, hoping to get the work done quickly, set
the men on in gangs under the superintendence of Reis Hassan
and the head sailor.

By noon, the door was cleared down to the threshold, and
the whole south and west walls were laid bare to the floor.

We now found that the debris which blocked the north
wall and the centre of the floor was not, as we had at first sup-

DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIM BEL,

331

posed, a pile of fallen fragments, but one solid boulder which
had come down bodily from above. To remove this was im-
possible. We had no tools to cut or break it, and it was both
wider and higher than the doorway. Even to clear away the
sand which rose behind it to the ceiling would have taken a long
time, and have caused inevitable injury to the paintings around.
Already the brilliancy of the colour was marred where the men
had leaned their backs, all wet with perspiration, against the walls.

ENTRANCE OF SPECS.

Seeing, therefore, that three-fourths of the decorations were
now uncovered, and that behind the fallen block there appeared
to be no subject of great size or importance, we made up our
minds to carry the work no further.

Meanwhile, we had great fun at luncheon with our Nubian
Sheykh — a tall, well-featured man with much natural dignity
of manner. He was well dressed, too, and wore a white turban
most symmetrically folded ; a white vest buttoned to the throat ;
a long loose robe of black serge ; an outer robe of fine black

332 DISCOVERIES AT ABOU S 1MB EL.

cloth with hanging sleeves and a hood ; and on his feet, white
stockings and scarlet morocco shoes. When brought face to
face with a knife and fork, his embarrassment was great. He
was, it seemed, too grand a personage to feed himself. He
must have a " feeder " ; as the great man of the Middle Ages
had a " taster." Talhamy accordingly, being promoted to this
office, picked out choice bits of mutton and chicken with his
fingers, dipped pieces of bread in gravy, and put every morsel
into our guest's august mouth, as if the said guest were a baby.

The sweets being served, the Little Lady, L., and the
Writer took him in hand, and fed him with all kinds of jams
and preserved fruits. Enchanted with these attentions, the
poor man ate till he could eat no longer ; then laid his hand
pathetically over the region next his heart, and cried for mercy.
After luncheon, he smoked his chibouque, and coffee was
served. Our coffee did not please him. He tasted it, but
immediately returned the cup, telling the waiter with a grimace,
that the berries were burned and the coffee weak. When,
however, we apologised for it, he protested with Oriental insin-
cerity that it was excellent.

To amuse him was easy, for he was interested in every-
thing ; in L.'s field-glass, in the Painter's accordion, in the
piano, and the lever corkscrew. With some eau-de-Cologne
he was also greatly charmed, rubbing it on his beard and in-
haling it with closed eyes, in a kind of rapture. To make talk
was, as usual, the great difficulty. When he had told us that
his eldest son was Governor of Derr ; that his youngest was
five years of age ; that the dates of Deri- were better than the
dates of Wady Halfeh ; and that the Nubian people were very
poor, he was at the end of his topics. Finally, he requested us
to convey a letter from him to Lord D , who had enter-
tained him on board his dahabeeyah the year before. Being
asked if he had brought his letter with him, he shook his head,
saying : — " Your dragoman shall write it.'"

So paper and a reed -pen were produced, and Talhamy
wrote to dictation as follows : —

" God have care of you. I hope you are well. I am sorry
not to have had a letter from you since you were here. Your
brother and friend, Rashwan Ebn Hassan el Kashef."

DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIM BEL. 333

A model letter this ; brief, and to the point.

Our urbane and gentlemanly Sheykh was, however, not
quite so charming when it came to settling time. We had
sent at first for fifty men, and the price agreed upon was five
piastres, or about a shilling English, for each man per day. In
answer to this call, there first came forty men for half a day ;
then a hundred men for a whole day, or what was called a
whole day ; so making a total of six pounds due for wages.
But the descendant of the Kashefs would hear of nothing so
commonplace as the simple fulfilment of a straightforward con-
tract. He demanded full pay for a hundred men for two whole
days, a gun for himself, and a liberal backshish in cash.
Finding he had asked more than he had any chance of getting,
he conceded the question of wages, but stood out for a game-bag
and a pair of pistols. Finally, he was obliged to be content with
the six pounds for his men, and for himself two pots of jam, two
boxes of sardines, a bottle of eau-de-Cologne, a box of pills, and
half-a-sovereign.

By four o'clock he and his followers were gone, and we
once more had the place to ourselves. So long as they were
there it was impossible to do anything, but now, for the first
time, we fairly entered into possession of our newly- found
treasure.

All the rest of that day, and all the next day, we spent at
work in and about the Speos. L. and the Little Lady took
their books and knitting there, and made a little drawing-room
of it. The Writer copied paintings and inscriptions. The
Idle Man and the Painter took measurements and surveyed the
ground round about, especially endeavouring to make out the
plan of certain fragments of wall, the foundations of which
were yet traceable,

A careful examination of these ruins, and a little clearing
of the sand here and there, led to further discoveries. They
found that the Speos had been approached by a large outer
hall built of sun-dried brick, with one principal entrance facing
the Nile, and two side -entrances facing northwards. The
floor was buried deep in sand and debris, but enough of the
walls remained above the surface to show that the ceiling had
been vaulted and the side-entrances arched.

334 DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIM BEL.

The southern boundary wall of this hall, when the surfice
sand was removed, appeared to be no less than 20 feet in
thickness. This was not in itself so wonderful, there being
instances of ancient Egyptian crude-brick walls which measure
80 feet in thickness ;^ but it was astounding as compared with
the north, east, and west walls, which measured only 3 feet.
Deeming it impossible that this mass could be solid throughout,
the Idle Man set to work with a couple of sailors to probe the
centre part of it, and it soon became evident that there was a
hollow space about three feet in width running due east and
west down not quite exactly the middle of the structure.

All at once the Idle Man thrust his fingers into a skull !

This was such an amazing and unexpected incident, that
for the moment he said nothing, but went on quietly displacing
the sand and feeling his way under the surface. The next
instant his hand came in contact with the edge of a clay bowl,
which he carefully withdrew. It measured about four inches
in diameter, was hand-moulded, and full of caked sand. He
now proclaimed his discoveries, and all ran to help in the
work. Soon a second and smaller skull was turned up, then
another bowl, and then, just under the place from which the
bowls were taken, the bones of two skeletons all detached,
perfectly desiccated, and apparently complete. The remains
were those of a child and a small grown person — probably a
woman. The teeth were sound ; the bones wonderfully delicate
and brittle. As for the little skull (which had fallen apart at
the sutures), it was pure and fragile in texture as the cup of
a water-lily.

We laid the bones aside as we found them, examining
every handful of sand, in the hope of discovering something
that might throw light upon the burial. But in vain. We
found not a shred of clothing, not a bead, not a coin, not the
smallest vestige of anything that might help one to judge
whether the interment had taken place a hundred years ago or
a thousand.

We now called up all the crew, and went on excavating

1 The enclosure-wall of the Great Temple of Tanis is 80 feet thick.
See Tanis, Part I, by W. M. F. Petrie ; published by the Committee of
the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1885. [Note to Second Edition.]

DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIM BEL. 335

downwards into what seemed to be a long and narrow vault
measuring some fifteen feet by three.

After-reflection convinced us that we had stumbled upon
a chance Nubian grave, and that the bowls (which at first we
absurdly dignified with the name of cinerary urns) were but
the usual water-bowls placed at the heads of the dead. But
we were in no mood for reflection at the time. We made
sure that the Speos was a mortuary chapel ; that the vault
was a vertical pit leading to a sepulchral chamber ; and that
at the bottom of it we should find .... who could tell what ?
Mummies, perhaps, and sarcophagi, and funerary statuettes,
and jewels, and papyri, and wonders without end ! That these
uncared-for bones should be laid in the mouth of such a pit,
scarcely occurred to us as an incongruity. Supposing them to
be Nubian remains, what then ? If a modern Nubian at the
top, why not an ancient Egyptian at the bottom ?

As the work of excavation went on, however, the vault
was found to be entered by a steep inclined plane. Then the
inclined plane turned out to be a flight of much worn and
very shallow stairs. These led down to a small square landing,
some twelve feet below the surface, from which landing an
arched doorway ^ and passage opened into the fore-court of
the Speos. Our sailors had great difficulty in excavating this
part, in consequence of the weight of superincumbent sand
and debris on the side next the Speos. By shoring up the
ground, however, they were enabled completely to clear the
landing, which was curiously paved with cones of rude pottery
like the bottoms of amphorae. These cones, of which we took
out some twenty-eight or thirty, were not in the least like the
celebrated funerary cones found so abundantly at Thebes.
They bore no stamp, and were much shorter and more lumpy
in shape. Finally, the cones being all removed, we came to
a compact and solid floor of baked clay.

1 It was long believed that the Egyptians were ignorant of the principle
of the arch. This, however, was not the case. There are brick arches
of the time of Rameses II behind the Ramesseum at Thebes, and else-
where. Still, arches are rare in Egypt. We filled in and covered the
arch again, and the greater part of the staircase, in order to preserve the
former.

336 DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SI MB EL.

The Painter, meanwhile, had also been at work. Having
traced the circuit and drawn out a ground-plan, he came to
the conclusion that the whole mass adjoining the southern wall
of the Speos was in fact composed of the ruins of a pylon, the
walls of which were seven feet in thickness, built in regular
string-courses of moulded brick, and finished at the angles
with the usual torus, or round moulding. The superstructure,
with its chambers, passages, and top cornice, was gone ; and
this part with which we were now concerned was merely the
basement, and included the bottom of the staircase.

The Painter's ground-plan demolished all our hopes at one
fell swoop. The vault was a vault no longer. The staircase
led to no sepulchral chamber. The brick floor hid no secret
entrance. Our mummies melted into thin air, and we were
left with no excuse for carrying on the excavations. We were
mortally disappointed. In vain we told ourselves that the
discovery of a large brick pylon, the existence of which had
been unsuspected by preceding travellers, was an event of
greater importance than the finding of a tomb. We had set
our hearts on the tomb ; and I am afraid we cared less than
we ought for the pylon.

Having traced thus far the course of the excavations and
the way in which one discovery led step by step to another,
I must now return to the Speos, and, as accurately as I can,
describe it, not only from my notes made on the spot, but by
the light of such observations as I afterwards made among
structures of the same style and period. I must, however,
premise that, not being able to go inside while the excavators
were in occupation, and remaining but one whole day at Abou
Simbel after ihc work was ended, I had but short time at my
disposal. I would gladly have made coloured copies of all
the wall-paintings ; but this was impossible. I therefore was
obliged to be content with transcribing the inscriptions and
sketching a few of the more important subjects.

The rock-cut chamber which I have hitherto described as
a Speos, and which we at first believed to be a tomb, was in
fact neither the one nor the other. It was the adytum of a
partly-built, partly-excavated monument coeval in date with
the Great Temple. In certain points of design this monument

DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIMBEL. 337

resembles the contemporary Speos of Bayt- el -Welly. It is
evident, for instance, that the outer halls of both were originally
vaulted ; and the much mutilated sculptures over the doorway
of the excavated chamber at Abou Simbel are almost identical
in subject and treatment with those over the entrance to the
excavated parts of Bayt-el-Welly. As regards general con-
ception, the Abou Simbel monument comes under the same
head with the contemporary Temples of Derr, Gerf Hossayn,
and Wady Sabooah ; being in a mixed style which combines
excavation with construction. This style seems to have been
peculiarly in favour during the reign of Rameses II.

Situate at the south-eastern angle of the rock, a little way
beyond the facade of the Great Temple, this rock-cut adytum
and hall of entrance face S.E. by E., and command much the
same view that is commanded higher up by the Temple of
Hathor. The adytum, or excavated Speos, measures 2 1 feet
2^ inches in breadth by 14 feet 8 inches in length. The
height from floor to ceiling is about 1 2 feet. The doorway
measures 4 feet 3^ inches in width ; and the outer recess for
the door-frame, 5 feet. Two large circular holes, one in the
threshold and the other in the lintel, mark the place of the
pivot on which the door once swung.

It is not very easy to measure the outer hall in its present
ruined and encumbered state ; but as nearly as we could judge,
its dimensions are as follows: — Length, 25 feet; width, 22-^
feet ; width of principal entrance facing the Nile, 6 feet ; width
of two side entrances, 4 feet and 6 feet respectively ; thickness
of crude-brick walls, 3 feet. Engaged in the brickwork on
either side of the principal entrance to this hall are two stone
door-jambs ; and some six or eight feet in front of these, there
originally stood two stone hawks on hieroglyphed pedestals.
One of these hawks we found in situ, the other lay some little
distance off, and the Painter (suspecting nothing of these after
revelations) had used it as a post to which to tie one of the
main ropes of his sketching tent. A large hieroglyphed slab,
which I take to have formed part of the door, lay overturned
against the side of the pylon some few yards nearer the river.

As far as the adytum and outer hall are concerned, the
accompanying ground-plan — which is in part founded on my

538

DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIM BEL.

own measurements, and in part borrowed from the ground-plan
drawn out by the Painter — may be accepted as tolerably
correct But with regard to the pylon, I can only say with

Scale fi- ofnn I/ich to a Foot.

1. Wall of pylon.

2. Square landing.

3. Arched doorway and passage leading to vaulted halL

4. Walls of outer hall or pronaos.

5. Door-jambs.

6. Stone hawks on pedestals.

7. Torus of pyloru

8. Arched entrances in north wall of pronaos.

certainty that the central staircase is three feet in width, and
that the walls on each side of it are seven feet in thickness. So
buried is it in debris and sand, that even to indicate where the
building ends and the rubbish begins at the end next the Nile,

DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIM BEL.

339

is impossible. This part is therefore left indefinite in the
ground-plan.

So far as we could see, there was no stone revetement
upon the inner side of the walls of the pronaos. If anything
of the kind ever existed, some remains of it would probably be
found by thoroughly clearing the area ; an interesting enterprise
for any who may have leisure to undertake it.

I have now to speak of the decorations of the adytum, the
walls of which, from immediately under the ceiling to within
three feet of the floor, are covered with religious subjects
elaborately sculptured in bas-relief, coated as usual with a thin
film of stucco, and coloured with a richness for which I know
no parallel, except in the tomb of Seti I ^ at Thebes. Above
the level of the drifted sand, this colour was as brilliant in
tone and as fresh in surface as on the day when it was trans-
ferred to those walls from the palette of the painter. All
below that level, however, was dimmed and damaged.

PATTERN OF CORNICE.

The ceiling is surrounded by a frieze of cartouches sup-
ported by sacred asps ; each cartouche, with its supporters,
being divided from the next by a small sitting figure. These
figures, in other respects uniform, wear the symbolic heads of
various gods — the cow-head of Hathor, the ibis-head of Thoth,
the hawk-head of Horus, the jackal-head of Anubis, etc. etc.
The cartouches contain the ordinary style and title of Rameses
II (Ra-user-ma Sotep-en-Ra Rameses Mer-Amen), and are
surmounted by a row of sun-disks. Under each sitting god is
depicted the phonetic hieroglyph signifying Mer, or Beloved.
By means of this device, the whole frieze assumes the character
of a connected legend, and describes the king not only as
* Commonly known as Belzoni's Tomb.

340

DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIM BEL.

beloved of Amen, but as Rameses beloved of Hathor, of Thoth,
of Horus — in short, of each God depicted in the series.

These Gods excepted, the frieze is almost identical in
design with the frieze in the first hall of the great Temple.

West Wall.^

The west, or principal wall, facing the entrance, is divided
into two large subjects, each containing two figures the size of
life. In the division to the right, Rameses II
worships Ra ; in the division to the left, he
worships Amen-Ra ; thus following the order
observed in the other two tem.ples, where the
subjects relating to Amen-Ra occupy the left
half, and the subjects relating to Ra occupy
the right half, of each structure. An upright
ensign surmounted by an exquisitely drawn
and coloured head of Horus Aroeris separates
these two subjects.^ In the subject to the
right, Rameses, wearing the red and white
pschent, presents an offering of two small
aryballos vases without handles. The vases
are painted blue, and are probably intended
to represent lapis lazuli ; a substance much
prized by the ancient Egyptians, and known
to them by the name of kJiesbct. The King's necklace, armlets,
and bracelets are also blue. Ra sits enthroned, holding in one

hand the " Ankh," or crux ansata, emblem of life, >^ and in the

STANDARD OF HORUS
AROERIS.

1 I write of these walls, for convenience, as N., S., E., and W., as one
is so accustomed to regard the position of buildings parallel with the river ;
but the present monument, as it is turned slightly southward round the
angle of the rock, really stands S.E. by E., instead of east and west like
the large Temple.

2 Horus Aroeris. — " Celui-ci, qui semble avoir ete fr^re d'Osiris, porte
une tete d'epervier coififde du pschent. II est presque compl^tement
identifie avec le soleil dans la plupart des lieux ou il etait adore, et il en
est de meme trfes souvent pour Horus, fils d'Isis." — Notice Soimnaire des
Monuments du Louvre^ 1873. De Rouge. In the present instance, this
God seems to have been identified with Ra.

DISCOVERIES AT ABOU S 1MB EL. 341

other the greyhound-headed ^ sceptre of the Gods. He is hawk-
headed, and crowned with the sun-disk and asp. His flesh is
painted bright Venetian red. He wears a pectoral ornament ;
a rich necklace of alternate vermilion and black drops ; and a
golden-yellow belt studded with red and black stones. The
throne, which stands on a blue platform, is painted in stripes
of red, blue, and white. The platform is decorated with a
row of gold-coloured stars and " ankh " emblems picked out
with red. At the foot of this platform, between the God and
the King, stands a small altar, on which are placed the usual
blue lotus with red stalk, and a spouted libation vessel.

To the left of the Horus ensign, seated back-to-back with
Ra upon a similar throne, sits Amen-Ra — of all Egyptian
Gods the most terrible to look upon — with his blue-black
complexion, his corselet of golden chain-armour, and his head-
dress of towering plumes.^ Here the wonderful preservation
of the surface enabled one to see by what means the ancient
artists were wont to produce this singular blue-black effect of
colour. It was evident that the flesh of the God had first been
laid in with dead black, and then coloured over with a dry,

1 " Le sceptre k tete de levrier, nomme k tort sceptre k tete de cou-
cnupha, ^tait port^ par les dieux." — Die. d'Arch. Egyptienne : P. Pierret ;
Paris, 1875.

2 Amen of the blue complexion is the most ancient type of this God.
He here represents divine royahy, in which character his title is : " Lord
of the Heaven, of the Earth, of the Waters, and of the Mountains."
" Dans ce role de roi du monde, Amon a les chairs peintes en bleu pour
indiquer sa nature celeste ; et lorsqu'il porte le titre de Seigneur des
Trones, il est represente assis, la couronne en tete : d'ordinaire il est
debout." — Etude des Mofiuments de Karnak. De Rouge. Milanges
d'Archeologie,vo\. i. 1873.

There were almost as many varieties of Amen in Egypt as there are
varieties of the Madonna in Italy or Spain. There was an Amen of
Thebes, an Amen of Elephantine, an Amen of Coptos, an Amen of
Chemmis (Panopolis), an Amen of the Resurrection, Amen of the Dew,
Amen of the Sun (Amen-Ra), Amen Self- created, etc. etc. Amen and
Khem were doubtless identical. It is an interesting fact that our English
words, chemical, chemist, chemistry, etc., which the dictionaries derive
from the Arabic al-kimia, may be traced back a step farther to the
Panopolitan name of this most ancient God of the Egyptians, Khem (Gr.
Pan ; Latin, Priapus), the deity of plants and herbs and of the creative
principle. A cultivated Egyptian would, doubtless, have regarded all these
Amens as merely local or symbolical types of a single deity.

342

DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIM BEL.

powdery cobalt -blue, through which the black remained
partially visible. He carries in one hand the ankh, and in the
other the greyhound-headed sceptre.

To him advances the King,
his right hand uplifted, and in
his left a small basket contain-
ing a votive statuette of Ma, the
Goddess of Truth and Justice.
Ma is, however, shorn of her
distinctive feather, and holds the
jackal -headed staff instead of
the customary crux ansata.

As portraiture, there is not
much to be said for any of
these heads of Rameses II ;
but the features bear a certain
resemblance to the well-known
profile of the King ; the action
of the figure is graceful and
animated ; and the drawing dis-
plays in all its purity the firm
and flowing line of Egyptian
draughtsmanship.

The dress of the King is
very rich in colour ; the mitre-
shaped casque being of a vivid
cobalt- blue ^ picked out with
gold-colour ; the belt, necklace,
armlets, and bracelets, of gold, studded apparently with precious
stones ; the apron, green and gold. Over the King's head
hovers the sacred vulture, emblem of Maut, holding in her claws
a kind of scutcheon upon which is depicted the crux ansata.

^ The material of this blue helmet, so frequently depicted on the
monuments, may have been the Homeric Kuanos, about which so much
doubt and conjecture have gathered, and which Mr. Gladstone supposes to
have been a metal. — {Se.e Juventus Mundt, chap. xv. p. 532.) A paragraph
in The Academy (June 8, 1876) gives the following particulars of certain
perforated lamps of a "blue metallic substance," discovered at Hissarlik
by Dr. Schliemann, and there found lying under the copper shields to
which they had probably been attached. " An analytical examination by

RAMESES II OF SPECS.

DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIM BEL. 343

South Wall.

The subjects represented on this wall are as follows : —

1. Rameses, life-size, presiding over a table of offerings.
The king wears upon his head the klaft, or head-cloth, striped
gold and white, and decorated with the uraeus. The table is
piled in the usual way with flesh, fowl, and flowers. The
surface being here quite perfect, the details of these objects
are seen to be rendered with surprising minuteness. Even the
tiny black feather-stumps of the plucked geese are given with
the fidelity of Chinese art ; while a red gash in the breast of
each shows in what way it was slain for the sacrifice. The
loaves are shaped precisely like the so-called " cottage-loaves "
of to-day, and have the same little depression in the top, made
by the baker's finger. Lotus and papyrus blossoms in elaborate
bouquet-holders crown the pile.

2. Two tripods of light and elegant design, containing
flowers.

3. The Bari, or sacred boat, painted gold-colour, with the
usual veil half-drawn across the naos, or shrine ; the prow of
the boat being richly carved, decorated with the Uta^ or
symbolic eye, and preceded by a large fan of ostrich feathers.

Landerer {Berg. Hiittenm. Zeitung, xxxiv. 430) has shown them to be
sulphide of copper. The art of colouring the metal was known to the
coppersmiths of Corinth, who plunged the heated copper into the fountain
of Peirene. It appears not impossible that this was a sulphur spring, and
that the blue colour may have been given to the metal by plunging it in a
heated state into the water and converting the surface into copper sulphide."

It is to be observed that the Pharaohs are almost always represented
wearing this blue helmet in the battle-pieces, and that it is frequently
studded with gold rings. It must therefore have been of metal. If not
of sulphuretted copper, it may have been made of steel, which, in the well-
known instance of the butcher's sharpener, as well as in representations of
certain weapons, is always painted blue upon the monuments.

1 " This eye, called uta^ was extensively used by the Egyptians both
as an ornament and amulet during life, and as a Sepulchral amulet They
are found in the form of right eyes and left eyes, and they symbolise the
eyes of Horus, as he looks to the N. and S. horizons in his passage from
E. to W. i.e. from sunrise to sunset."

M. Grebaut, in his translation of a hymn to Amen-Ra, observes : " Le
soleil marchant d'Orient en Occident eclaire de ses deux yeux les deux
regions du Nord et du Midi." — Revue Arch. vol. xxv. 1873 '■> ?• 387.

344

DISCOVERIES AT A SOU SIM BEL.

Tlie boat is peopled with small black figures, one of which
kneels at the stern ; while a sphinx couchant, with black body
and human head, keeps watch at the prow. The sphinx
symbolises the king.^

On this wall, in a space between the sacred boat and the
figure of Rameses, occurs the following inscription, sculptured
in high relief and elaborately coloured : —

cO]

□

I ! I

/VWAAA

wO©

;¥

\i^!^

w O

Note. — This inscription reads according to the
numbering of the columns, beginning at i and reading
to the right ; then resuming at 7 and reading to the
left. The spaces lettered A B in the lowest figure
of column s are filled in with the two cartouches of
Rameses II.

Translation.^

Said by Thoth, the Lord of Sesennu,^ [residing] in Amen-
heri,* — I give to thee an everlasting sovereignty over the Two

1 See an accurate facsimile of this Bari, in chromo-lithography, in Mr.
Villiers Stuart's "Nile Gleanmgs'^ : Murray, 1879.

2 This inscription was translated for the first edition of this book by
the late Dr. Birch ; for the present translation I am indebted to the
courtesy of E. A. Wallis Budge, Esq.

3 Sesennu — Eshmoon or Hermopolis.
* Antetiheri — Gebel Addeh.

DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SiMBEL. 345

Countries, O, Son of [my] body, Beloved, Ra-user-ma Sotep-
en - Ra, acting as propitiator of thy Ka. I give to thee
myriads of festivals of Rameses beloved of Amen, Ra-user-ma
Sotep - en - Ra, as prince of every place where the sun - disk
revolves. The beautiful living God, maker of beautiful things
for [his] father Thoth Lord of Sesennu [residing] in Amenheri.
He made mighty and beautiful monuments for ever facing the
eastern horizon of heaven.

The meaning of which is that Thoth, addressing Rameses
II, then living and reigning, promises him a long life and
many anniversaries of his jubilee,^ in return for the works made
in his (Thoth's) honour at Abou Simbel and elsewhere.

North Wall.

At the upper end of this wall is depicted a life-sized female
figure wearing an elaborate blue head-dress surmounted by a
disk and two ostrich feathers. She holds in her right hand
the ankh, and in her left the jackal-headed sceptre. This not
being the sceptre of a goddess, and the head-dress resembling
that of the Queen as represented on the facade of the Temple
of Hathor, I conclude we have here a portrait of Nefertari
corresponding to the portrait of Rameses on the opposite wall.
Near her stands a table of offerings, on which, among other
objects, are placed four vases of a rich blue colour traversed by
bands of yellow. They perhaps represent the kind of glass
known as the false murrhine.^ Each of these vases contains
an object like a pine, the ground-colour of which is deep yellow,
patterned over with scale-like subdivisions in vermilion. We
took them to represent grains of maize pyramidally piled.

Lastly, a pendant to that on the opposite wall, comes the

1 These jubilees, or festivals of thirty years, were religious jubilees
m celebration of each thirtieth anniversary of the accession of the reigning
Pharaoh.

2 There are, in the British Museum, some bottles and vases of this
description, dating from the XVII 1th Dynasty; see Case E, Second
Egyptian Room. They are of dark blue translucent glass, veined with
waving lines of opaque white and yellow.

346 DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIMBEL.

sacred Ban". It is, however, turned the reverse way, with its
prow towards the east ; and it rests upon an altar, in the centre
of which are the cartouches of Rameses II and a small hiero-
glyphic inscription signifying : '' Beloved by Amen-Ra, King
of the Gods resident in the Land of Kenus." ^

Beyond this point, at the end nearest the north-east corner
of the chamber, the piled sand conceals whatever else the wall
may contain in the way of decoration.

East Wall.

If the east wall is decorated like the others (which may be
taken for granted), its tableaux and inscriptions are hidden
behind the sand which here rises to the ceiling. The doorway
also occurs in this wall, occupying a space 4 feet 3^ inches in
width on the inner side.

One of the most interesting incidents connected with the
excavation of this little adytum remains yet to be told.

I have described the female figure at the upper end of the
north wall, and how she holds in her right hand the ankh and
in her left the jackal-headed sceptre. The hand that holds the
ankh hangs by her side ; the hand that holds the sceptre is
half raised. Close under this upraised hand, at a height of
between three and four feet from the actual level of the floor,
there were visible upon the uncoloured surface of the original
stucco several lines of free-hand writing. This writing was
laid on, apparently, with the brush, and the ink, if ever it had
been black, had now become brown. Five long lines and three
shorter lines were uninjured. Below these were traces of other
fragmentary lines, almost obliterated by the sand.

We knew at once that this quaint faint writing must be in
either the hieratic or demotic hand. We could distinguish, or
thought we could distinguish, in its vague outlines of forms
already familiar to us in the hieroglyphs — abstracts, as it were,
of birds and snakes and boats. There could be no doubt, at
all events, that the thing was curious ; and we set it down in
our own minds as the writing of either the architect or decorator
of the place.

1 Kenus — Nubia.

XA-kA-

-(r5i.na!i8^^ii.

^ys

HIERATIC INSCRIPTION.

N. AVALL OF SPEOS.
TranslaUdby S. Birch, Esq., L.L.JD., (5^'<r., dfc.

. . thy son having thou hast conquered the worlds

at once Ammon Ra-Harmachis, t the God at the first

time,* who gives life, health, and a time of many

praises to the groom of the Khen,** son of the

Royal son of Cush,tt Opener of the road. Maker
of transport boats, Giver of instructions to his Lord
Amenshaa

t i.e. Ammon Ra, the Sun God, in conjunction or identification with Har-em-ax^ ^
Horus-on-the- Horizon, another Solar deity.
• The i>rimasval God.
*• Inner place, or Sanctuary,
ft Ethiopia.

DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIMBEL. 347

Anxious to make, if possible, an exact facsimile of this
inscription, the Writer copied it three times. The last and
best of these copies is here reproduced in photolithography,
with a translation from the pen of the late Dr. Birch. We all
know how difficult it is to copy correctly in a language of which
one is ignorant ; and the tiniest curve or dot omitted is fatal to
the sense of these ancient characters. In the present instance,
notwithstanding the care with which the transcript was made,
there must still have been errors ; for it has been found un-
decipherable in places ; and in these places there occur inevit-
able lacunae.

Enough, however, remains to show that the lines were
written, not as we had supposed by the artist, but by a dis-
tinguished visitor, whose name unfortunately is illegible. This
visitor was a son of the Prince of Kush, or as it is literally
written, the Royal Son of Kush ; that being the official title of
the Governor of Ethiopia.^ As there were certainly eight
governors of Ethiopia during the reign of Rameses II (and
perhaps more, whose names have not reached us), it is impos-
sible even to hazard a guess at the parentage of our visitor.
We gather, however, that he was sent hither to construct a
road ; also that he built transport boats ; and that he exercised
priestly functions in that part of the Temple which was inac-
cessible to all but dignitaries of the sacerdotal order.

Site, inscriptions, and decorations taken into account, there
yet remains this question to be answered : —

What was the nature and character of the monument just
described .-'

It adjoined a pylon, and, as we have seen, consisted of a
vaulted pronaos in crude brick, and an adytum excavated in the

1 Governors of Ethiopia bore this title, even though they did not them-
selves belong to the family of the Pharaoh.

It is a curious fact that one of the Governors of Ethiopia during the
reign of Rameses II was called Mes, or Messou, signifying son, or child —
which is in fact Moses. Now the Moses of the Bible was adopted by
Pharaoh's daughter, "became to her as a son," was instructed in the
wisdom of the Egyptians, and married a Kushite woman, black but comely.
It would perhaps be too much to speculate on the possibility of his having
held the office of Governor, or Royal Son of Kush.

348 DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SiMBEL.

rock. On the walls of this adytum are depicted various Gods
with their attributes, votive offerings, and portraits of the King
performing acts of adoration. The Bari, or ark, is also repre-
sented upon the north and south walls of the adytum. These
are unquestionably the ordinary features of a temple, or chapel.

On the other hand, there must be noted certain objections
to these premises. It seemed to us that the pylon was built
first, and that the south boundary wall of the pronaos, being a
subsequent erection, was supported against the slope of the
pylon as far as where the spring of the vaulting began. Besides
which, the pylon would have been a disproportionately large
adjunct to a little monument the entire length of which, from
the doorway of the pronaos to the west wall of the adytum, was
less than 47 feet. We therefore concluded that the pylon
belonged to the large temple, and was erected at the side,
instead of in front of the facade, on account of the very narrow
space between the mountain and the river.^

The pylon at Kom Ombo is, probably for the same reason,
placed at the side of the Temple and on a lower level. To
those who might object that a brick pylon would hardly be
attached to a temple of the first class, I would observe that the
remains of a similar pylon are still to be seen at the top of
what was once the landing-place leading to the Great Temple
at Wady Halfeh. It may, therefore, be assumed that this little
monument, although connected with the pylon by means of a
doorway and staircase, was an excrescence of later date.

Being an excrescence, however, was it, in the strict sense
of the word, a temple ?

Even this seems to be doubtful. In the adytum there is
no trace of any altar — no fragment of stone dais or sculptured
image — no granite shrine, as at Philae — no sacred recess, as at
Denderah. The standard of Horus Aroeris, engraven on page
340, occupies the centre place upon the wall facing the entrance,
and occupies it, not as a tutelary divinity, but as a decorative
device to separate the two large subjects already described.

1 At about an equal distance to the north of the Great Temple, on the
verge of the bank, is a shapeless block of brick ruin, which might possibly,
if investigated, turn out to be the remains of a second pylon corresponding
to this which we partially uncovered to the south.

DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIM BEL. 349

Again, the Gods represented in these subjects are Ra and
Amen-Ra, the tutelary Gods of the Great Temple ; but if we
turn to the dedicatory inscription on page 344 we find that
Thoth, whose image never occurs at all upon the walls ^ (unless
as one of the little Gods in the cornice), is really the presiding
deity of the place. It is he who welcomes Rameses and his
offerings ; who acknowledges the " glory " given to him by his
beloved son ; and who, in return for the great and good monu-
ments erected in his honour, promises the king that he shall be
given "an everlasting sovereignty over the Two Countries."

Now Thoth was, par excellence, the God of Letters. He
is styled the Lord of Divine Words ; the Lord of the Sacred
Writings ; the Spouse of Truth. He personifies the Divine
Intelligence. He is the patron of art and science ; and he is
credited with the invention of the alphabet. In one of the
most interesting of Champollion's letters from Thebes,^ he
relates how, in the fragmentary ruins of the western extremity
of the Ramesseum, he found a doorway adorned with the
figures of Thoth and Safek ; Thoth as the God of Literature,
and Safek inscribed with the title of Lady President of the
Hall of Books. At Denderah, there is a chamber especially
set apart for the sacred writings, and its walls are sculptured
all over with a catalogue raisonnee of the manuscript treasures
of the Temple. At Edfu, a kind of closet built up between
two of the pillars of the Hall of Assembly was reserved for the
same purpose. Every Temple, in short, had its library ; and as
the Egyptian books — being written on papyrus or leather, rolled
up, and stored in coffers— occupied but little space, the rooms
appropriated to this purpose were generally small.

It was Dr. Birch's opinion that our little monument may
have been the library of the Great Temple of Abou Simbel.
This being the case, the absence of an altar, and the presence
of Ra and Amen - Ra in the two principal tableaux, are
sufficiently accounted for. The tutelary deity of the Great
Temple and the patron deity of Rameses II would naturally
occupy, in this subsidiary structure, the same places that they

1 He may, however, be represented on the north wall, where it is
covered by the sand-heap.

2 Letter XIV. p. 235. Nouvelle Ed. Paris, 1868.

350 DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIMBEL.

occupy in the principal one ; while the library, though in one
sense the domain of Thoth, is still under the protection of the
gods of the Temple to which it is an adjunct.

I do not believe we once asked ourselves how it came to
pass that the place had remained hidden all these ages long ;
yet its very freshness proved how early it must have been
abandoned. If it had been open in the time of the successors
of Rameses II, they would probably, as elsewhere, have inter-
polated inscriptions and cartouches, or have substituted their
own cartouches for those of the founder. If it had been open
in the time of the Ptolemies and Caesars, travelling Greeks and
learned Romans, and strangers from Byzantium and the cities
of Asia Minor, would have cut their names on the door-jambs
and scribbled ex-votos on the walls. If it had been open in
the days of Nubian Christianity, the sculptures would have
been coated with mud, and washed with lime, and daubed
with pious caricatures of St. George and the Holy Family.
But we found it intact — as perfectly preserved as a tomb that
had lain hidden under the rocky bed of the desert. For these
reasons I am inclined to think that it became inaccessible
shortly after it was completed. There can be little doubt that
a wave of earthquake passed, during the reign of Rameses II,
along the left bank of the Nile, beginning possibly above
Wady Halfeh, and extending at least as far north as Gerf
Hossayn. Such a shock might have wrecked the Temple at
Wady Halfeh, as it dislocated the pylon of Wady Sabooah,
and shook the built-out porticoes of Derr and Gerf Hossayn ;
which last four Temples, as they do not, I believe, show signs
of having been added to by later Pharaohs, may be supposed
to have been abandoned in consequence of the ruin which had
befallen them. Here, at all events, it shook the mountain of
the Great Temple, cracked one of the Osiride columns of the
First Hall,^ shattered one of the four great Colossi, more or
less injured the other three, flung down the great brick pylon,

1 That this shock of earthquake occurred during the lifetime of
Rameses II seems to be proven by the fact that, where the Osiride
column is cracked across, a wall has been built up to support the two last
pillars to the left at the upper end of the great hall, on which wall is a
large stela covered with an elaborate hieroglyphic inscription, dating from

DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIM BEL. 351

reduced the pronaos of the library to a heap of ruin, and not
only brought down part of the ceiling of the excavated adytum,
but rent open a vertical fissure in the rock, some 20 or 25
feet in length.

With so much irreparable damage done to the Great
Temple, and with so much that was reparable calling for
immediate attention, it is no wonder that these brick buildings
were left to their fate. The priests would have rescued the
sacred books from among the ruins, and then the place would
have been abandoned.

So much by way of conjecture. As hypothesis, a sufficient
reason is perhaps suggested for the wonderful state of preserva-
tion in which the little chamber had been handed down to the
present time. A rational explanation is also offered for the
absence of later cartouches, of Greek and Latin ex-votos, of
Christian emblems, and of subsequent mutilation of every kind.
For, save that one contemporary visitor — the son of the Royal
Son of Kush — the place contained, when we opened it, no
record of any passing traveller, no defacing autograph of tourist,
archaeologist, or scientific explorer. Neither Belzoni nor Cham-
pollion had found it out. Even Lepsius had passed it by.

It happens sometimes that hidden things, which in them-
selves are easy to find, escape detection because no one thinks
of looking for them. But such was not the case in this present
instance. Search had been made here again and again ; and
even quite recently.

It seems that when the Khedive^ entertains distinguished
guests and sends them in gorgeous dahabeeyahs up the Nile,

the xxxvth year, and the 1 3th day of the month of Tybi, of the reign of
Ranieses II. The right arm of the external colossus, to the right of the
great doorway, has also been supported by the introduction of an arm to
his throne, built up of square blocks ; this being the only arm to any of
the thrones. Miss Martineau detected a restoration of part of the lower
jaw of the northernmost colossus, and also a part of the dress of one of
the Osiride statues in the great hall. I have in my possession a photo-
graph taken at a time when the sand was several feet lower than at present,
which shows that the right leg of the northernmost colossus is also a
restoration on a gigantic scale, being built up, like the throne-arm, in
great blocks, and finished, most probably, afterwards.

1 This refers to the Ex-Khedive, Ismail Pasha, who ruled Egypt at the
time when this book was written and pubHshed. [Note to Second Edition.]

31; 2 DISCOVERIES AT AUOU SI MB EL.

he grants them a virgin mound, or so many square feet of a
famous necropolis ; lets them dig as deep as they please ; and
allows them to keep whatever they may find. Sometimes he
sends out scouts to beat the ground ; and then a tomb is
found and left unopened, and the illustrious visitor is allowed
to discover it. When the scouts are unlucky, it may even
sometimes happen that an old tomb is re-stocked ; carefully
closed up ; and then, with all the charm of unpremeditation,
re-opened a day or two after.

Now Sheykh Rashwan Ebn Hassan el Kashef told us that
in I 869, when the Empress of the French was at Abou Simbcl,
and again when the Prince and Princess of Wales came up
in 1872, after the Prince's illness, he received strict orders to
find some hitherto undiscovered tomb,^ in order that the
Khedive's guests might have the satisfaction of opening it.
But, he added, although he left no likely place untried among
the rocks and valleys on both sides of the river, he could find
nothing. To have unearthed such a Birbeh as this, would have
done him good service with the Government, and have ensured
him a splendid backshish from Prince or Empress. As it
was, he was reprimanded for want of diligence, and he believed
himself to have been out of favour ever since.

I may here mention — in order to have done with this
subject — that besides being buried outside to a depth of about
eight feet, the adytum had been partially filled inside by a
gradual infiltration of sand from above. This can only have
accumulated at the time when the old sand-drift was at its
highest. That drift, sweeping in one unbroken line across the
front of the Great Temple, must at one time have risen here
to a height of twenty feet above the present level. From
thence the sand had found its way down the perpendicular
fissure already mentioned. In the corner behind the door, the
sand-pile rose to the ceiling, in shape just like the deposit at
the bottom of an hour-glass. I am informed by the Painter
that when the top of the doorway was found and an opening
first effected, the sand poured out fj'oin within, like water
escaping from an opened sluice.

1 There are tombs in some of the ravines behind the Temples, which,
however, we did not see.

DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIM BEL. 353

Here, then, is positive proof (if pi'oof were needed) that
we were first to enter the place, at all events since the time
when the great sand-drift rose as high as the top of the fissure.

The Painter wrote his name and ours, with the date (Feb-
ruary 1 6th, 1874), on a space of blank wall over the inside of
the doorway ; and this was the only occasion upon which any
of us left our names upon an Egyptian monument. On arriving
at Korosko, where there is a post-office, he also despatched a
letter to the " Times," briefly recording the facts here related.
That letter, which appeared on the 1 8th of March following, is
reprinted in the Appendix at the end of this book.

I am told that our names are partially effaced, and that
the wall-paintings which we had the happiness of admiring in
all their beauty and freshness, are already much injured. Such
is the fate of every Egyptian monument, great or small. The
tourist carves it all over with* names and dates, and in some
instances with caricatures. The student of Egyptology, by
taking wet paper " squeezes," sponges away every vestige of
the original colour. The " collector " buys and carries off
everything of value that he can get ; and the Arab steals for
him. The work of destruction, meanwhile, goes on apace.
There is no one to prevent it ; there is no one to discourage it.
Every day, more inscriptions are mutilated — more tombs are
rifled — more paintings and sculptures are defaced. The Louvre
contains a full-length portrait of Seti I, cut out bodily from the
walls of his sepulchre in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings.
The Museums of Berlin, of Turin, of Florence, are rich in spoils
which tell their own lamentable tale. When science leads the
way, is it wonderful that ignorance should follow ?

2 A

CHAPTER XIX.

BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

1 HERE are fourteen Temples between Abou Simbel and
Philae ; to say nothing of grottoes, tombs, and other ruins. As
a rule, people begin to get tired of Temples about this time,
and vote them too plentiful. Meek travellers go through them
as a duty ; but the greater number rebel. Our Happy Couple,
I grieve to say, went over to the majority. Dead to shame,
they openly proclaimed themselves bored. They even skipped
several Temples.

For myself, I was never bored by them. Though they
had been twice as many, I should not have wished them fewer.
Miss Martineau tells how, in this part of the river, she was
scarcely satisfied to sit down to breakfast without having first
explored a Temple ; but I could have breakfasted, dined,
supped on Temples. My appetite for them was insatiable, and
grew with what it fed upon. I went over them all. I took
notes of them all. I sketched them every one.

I may as well say at once that I shall reproduce but few
of those notes, and only some of those sketches, in the present
volume. If, surrounded by their local associations, these ruins
fail to interest many who travel far to see them, it is not to be
supposed that they would interest readers at home. Here and
there, perhaps, might be one who would care to pore with me
over every broken sculpture ; to spell out every half-legible
cartouche ; to trace through Greek and Roman influences
(which are nowhere more conspicuous than in these Nubian
buildings) the slow deterioration of the Egyptian style. But

BACK THROUGH NUBIA. 355

the world for the most part reserves itself, and rightly, for the
great epochs and the great names of the past ; and because it
has not yet had too much of Karnak, of Abou Simbel, of the
Pyramids, it sets slight store by those minor monuments which
record the periods of foreign rule and the decline of native art.

For these reasons, therefore, I propose to dismiss very
briefly many places upon which I bestowed hours of delightful
labour.

We left Abou Simbel just as the moon was rising on the
evening of the i8th of February, and dropped down with the
current for three or four miles before mooring for the night.
At six next morning the men began rowing ; and at half-past
eight, the heads of the Colossi were still looking placidly after
us across a ridge of intervening hills. They were then more
than five miles distant in a direct line ; but every feature was
still distinct in the early daylight. One went up again and
again, as long as they remained in sight, and bade good-bye to
them at last with that same heartache which comes of a fare-
well view of the Alps.

When I say that we were seventeen days getting from
Abou Simbel to Philae, and that we had the wind against us
from sunrise till sunset almost every day, it will be seen that
our progress was of the slowest. To those who were tired of
Temples, and to the crew who were running short of bread,
these long days of lying up under the bank, or of rocking to
and fro in the middle of the river, were dreary enough.

Slowly but surely, however, the hard-won miles go by.
Sometimes the barren desert hems us- in to right and left, with
never a blade of green between the rock and the river. Some-
times, as at Tosko,^ we come upon an open tract, where there
are palms, and castor-berry plantations, and corn-fields alive
with quail. The Idle Man goes ashore at Tosko with his gun,
while the Little Lady and the Writer climb a solitary rock
about 200 feet above the river. The bank shelves here, and a
crescent-like wave of inundation, about three miles in length,
overflows it every season. From this height one sees exactly
how far the wave goes, and how it must make a little bay

1 Tosko is on the eastern bank, and not, as in Keith Johnston's map,
on the west.

356 BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

when it is there. Now it is a bay of bailey, full to the brim,
and rippling with the breeze. Beyond the green comes the
desert ; the one defined against the other as sharply as water
against land. The desert looks wonderfully old beside the
young green of the corn, and the Nile flows wide among sand-
banks, like a tidal river near the sea. The village, squared off
in parallelograms, like a cattle-market, lies mapped out below.
A field-glass shows that the houses are simply cloistered court-
yards roofed with palm-thatch ; the sheykh's house being
larger than the rest, with the usual open space and spreading
sycamore in front. There are women moving to and fro in
the courtyards, and husbandmen in the castor-berry patches.
A funeral with a train of wallers goes out presently towards
the burial-ground on the edge of the desert. The Idle Man, a
slight figure with a veil twisted round his hat, wades, half-hidden,
through the barley, signalling his whereabouts every now and
then by a puff of white smoke. A cargo-boat, stripped and
shorn, comes floating down the river, making no visible progress.
A native felucca, carrying one tattered brown sail, goes swiftly
up with the wind at a pace that will bring her to Abou Simbel
before nightfall. Already she is past the village ; and those
black specks yonder, which we had never dreamed were croco-
diles, have slipped off into the water at her approach. And
now she is far in the distance — that glowing, illimitable distance
— traversed by long silvery reaches of river, and ending in a
vast flat, so blue and aerial that, but for some three or four
notches of purple peaks on the horizon, one could scarcely
discern the point at which land and sky melt into each other.

Ibrim comes next ; then Derr ; then Wady Sabooah. At
Ibrim, as at Derr, there are " fair " families, whose hideous
light hair and blue eyes (grafted on brown-black skins) date
back to Bosnian forefathers of 360 years ago. These people
give themselves airs, and are the haute noblesse of the place.
The men are lazy and quarrelsome. The women trail longer
robes, wear more beads and rings, and are altogether more
unattractive and castor-oily than any we have seen elsewhere.
They keep slaves, too. We saw these unfortunates trotting at
the heels of their mistresses, like dogs. Knowing slavery to be
officially illegal in the dominions of the Khedive, the M. B.'s

BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

357

applied to a dealer, who offered them an x'\byssinian girl for
ten pounds. This useful article — warranted a bargain — was to
sweep, wash, milk, and churn ; but was not equal to cooking.
The M. B.'s, it is needless to add, having verified the facts,
retired from the transaction.

At Derr we paj- a farewell visit to the Temple ; and at
Amada, arriving towards close of day, see the great view for
the last time in the glory of sunset.

TEMPLE OF AMADA.

And now, though the north wind blows persistently, it gets
hotter every day. The crocodiles like it, and come out to
bask in the sunshine. Called up one morning in the middle of
breakfast we see two — a little one and a big one — on a sand-
bank near by. The men rest upon their oars. The boat goes
with the stream. No one speaks ; no one moves. Breathlessly
and in dead silence, we drift on till we are close beside them.
The big one is rough and black, like the trunk of a London
elm, and measures full eighteen feet in length. The little one
is pale and greenish, and glistens like glass. All at once, the
old one starts, doubles itself up for a spring, and disappears
with a tremendous splash. But the little one, apparently

358 BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

unconscious of danger, lifts its tortoise-like head, and eyes us
sidewise. Presently some one whispers ; and that whisper
breaks the spell. Our little crocodile flings up its tail, plunges
down the bank, and is gone in a moment.

The crew could not understand how the Idle Man, after
lying in wait for crocodiles at Abou Simbel, should let this
rare chance pass without a shot. But we had heard since then
of so much indiscriminate slaughter at the Second Cataract,
that he was resolved to bear no part in the extermination of
those old historic reptiles. That a sportsman should wish for
a single trophy is not unreasonable ; but that scores of crack
shots should go up every winter, killing and wounding these
wretched brutes at an average rate of from twelve to eighteen
per gun, is mere butchery, and cannot be too strongly repre-
hended. Year by year, the creatures become shyer and fewer ;
and the day is probably not far distant when a crocodile will
be as rarely seen below Semneh as it is now rarely seen below
Assfian.

The thermometer stands at 85° in the saloon of the Philae,
when we come one afternoon to Wady Sabooah, where there is
a solitary Temple drowned in sand. It was approached once
by an avenue of sphinxes and standing colossi, now shattered
and buried. The roof of the pronaos, if ever it was roofed, is
gone. The inner halls and the sanctuary — all excavated in
the rock — are choked and impassable. Only the propylon
stands clear of sand ; and that, massive as it is, looks as if one
touch of a battering-ram would bring it to the ground. Every
huge stone in it is loose. Every block in the cornice seems
tottering in its place. In all this, we fancy we recognise the
work of our Abou Simbel earthquake.^

^ This is one of the Temples erected by Rameses the Great, and, I
believe, not added to by any of his successors. The colossi, the Osiride
columns, the sphinxes (now battered out of all human semblance) were
originally made in his image. The cartouches are all his, and in one of
the inner chambers there is a list of his little family. All these chambers
were accessible till three or four years ago, when a party of German
travellers carried off some sculptured tablets of great archasological
interest ; after which act of spoliation the entrance was sanded up by
order of Mariette Bey. See also, with regard to the probable dat;e of the
(earthquake at this place, chap, xv-ii p 350,

BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

359

At Wady Sabooah we see a fat native. The fact claims
record, because it is so uncommon. A stalwart middle-aged
man, dressed in a tattered kilt and carrying a palm-staff in his
hand, he stands before us the living double of the famous
wooden statue at Boulak. He is followed by his two wives
and three or four children, all bent upon trade. The women

TE.Ml'LE OF WADY SABOOAH.

have trinkets, the boys a live chameleon and a small stuffed
crocodile for sale. While the Painter is bargaining for the
crocodile and L. for a nose-ring, the Writer makes acquaint-
ance with a pair of self-important hoopoes, who live in the
pylon, and evidently regard it as a big nest of their own build-
ing. They sit observing me curiously while I sketch, nodding
their crested polls and chattering disparagingly, like a couple
of critics. By and by comes a small black bird with a white
breast, and sings deliciously. It is like no little bird that I
have ever seen before ; but the song that it pours so lavishly
from its tiny throat is as sweet and brilliant as a canary's,

36o BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

Powerless against the wind, the dahabeeyah lies i^le day
after day in the sun. Sometimes, when we chance to be neai
a village, the natives squat on the bank, and stare at us for
hours together. The moment any one appears on deck, they
burst into a chorus of "Backshish!" There is but one way to
get rid of them, and that is to sketch them. The effect is
instantaneous. With a good sized block and a pencil, a whole
village may be put to flight at a moment's notice. If on the
other hand one wishes for a model, the difficulty is insuperable.
The Painter tried in vain to get some of the women and girls
(not a few of whom were really pretty) to sit for their portraits.
I well remember one haughty beauty, shaped and draped like
a Juno, who stood on the bank one morning, scornfully watch-
ing all that was done on deck. She carried a flat basket
back-handed ; and her arms were covered with bracelets, and
her fingers with rings. Her little girl, in a Madame Nubia
fringe, clung to her skirts, half wondering, half frightened.
The Painter sent out an ambassador plenipotentiary to offer
her anything from sixpence to half-a-sovereign, if she would
only stand like that for half an hour. The manner of her
refusal was grand. She drew her shawl over her face, took
her child's hand, and stalked away like an offended goddess.
The Writer, meanwhile, hidden behind a curtain, had snatched
a tiny sketch from the cabin-window.

On the western bank, somewhere between Wady Sabooah
and Maharrakeh, in a spot quite bare of vegetation, stand the
ruins of a fortified town which is neither mentioned by Murray
nor entered in the maps. It is built high on a base of reddish
rock, and commands the river and the desert. The Painter
and Writer explored it one afternoon, in the course of a long
ramble. Climbing first a steep slope strewn with masonry,
we came to the remains of a stone gateway. Finding this
impassable, we made our way through a breach in the battle-
mented wall, and thence up a narrow road down which had
been poured a cataract of debris. Skirting a ruined postern
at the top of this road, we found ourselves in a close labyrinth
of vaulted arcades built of crude brick and lit at short intervals
by openings in the roof These strange streets — for they were
streets — were lined on either side by small dwellings built of

BACK THROUGH NUBIA. 361

crude brick on stone foundations. We went into some of the
houses — mere ruined courts and roofless chambers, in which
were no indications of hearths or staircases. In one lay a
fragment of stone column about 14 inches in diameter. The
air in these ancient streets was foul and stagnant, and the
ground was everywhere heaped with fragments of black, red,
and yellowish pottery, like the shards of Elephantine and
Philae. A more desolate place in a more desolate situation I
never saw. It looked as if it had been besieged, sacked, and
abandoned, a thousand years ago ; which is probably under
the mark, for the character of the pottery would seem to point
to the period of Roman occupation. Noting how the brick
superstructures were reared on apparently earlier masonry, we
concluded that the beginnings of this place were probably
Egyptian, and the later work Roman. The marvel was that
any town should have been built in so barren a spot, there
being not so much as an inch-wide border of lentils for a mile
or more between the river and the desert.

Having traversed the place from end to end, we came out
through another breach on the westward side, and, thinking to
find a sketchable point of view inland, struck down towards the
plain. In order to reach this, one first must skirt a deep ravine
which divides the rock of the citadel from the desert. Follow-
ing the brink of this ravine to the point at which it falls into
the level, we found to our great surprise that we were treading
the banks of an extinct river.

It was full of sand now ; t)ut beyond all question it had
once been full of water. It came, evidently, from the mountains
over towards the north-west. We could trace its windings for
a long way across the plain, thence through the ravine, and on
southwards in a line parallel with the Nile. Here, beneath our
feet, were the water-worn rocks through which it had fretted its
way ; and yonder, half-buried in sand, were the boulders it had
rounded and polished, and borne along in its course. I doubt,
hov/ever, if when it was a river of water, this stream was half as
beautiful as now, when it is a river of sand. It was turbid
tnen. no doubt, and charged with sediment. Now it is more
golden than Pactolus, and covered with ripples more playful
and undulating than were ^ver modelled by Canaletti's pencil,

362 BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

Supposing yonder town to have been founded in the days
when the river was a river, and the plain fertile and well
watered, the mystery of its position is explained. It was pro-
tected in front by the Nile, and in the rear by the ravine and
the river. But how long ago was this ? Here apparently was
an independent stream, taking its rise among the Libyan
mountains. It dated back, consequently, to a time when those
barren hills collected and distributed water — that is to say, to a
time when it used to rain in Nubia. And that time must have
been before the rocky barrier broke down at Silsilis, in the old
days when the land of Kush flowed with milk and honcy.^

It would rain even now in Nubia, if it could. That same
evening when the sun was setting, we saw a fan-like drift of
dappled cloud miles high above our heads, melting, as it seemed,
in fringes of iridescent vapour. We could distinctly see those
fringes forming, wavering, and evaporating ; unable to descend
as rain, because dispersed at a high altitude by radiated heat
from the desert. This, with one exception, was the only
occasion on which I saw clouds in Nubia.

Coming back, we met a solitary native, with a string of
beads in his hand and a knife up his sleeve. He followed us
for a long way, volunteering a but half-intelligible story about
some unknown Birbeh^ in the desert. We asked where it was,
and he pointed up the course of our unknown river.

" You have seen it ? " said the Painter.

" Marrat ketir" (many tim.es).

"How far is it?"

" One day's march in the hagar " (desert).

" And have no Ingleezeh ever been to look for it ? "

He shook his head at first, not understanding the question ;
then looked grave and held up one finger.

Our stock of Arabic was so small, and his so interlarded
with Kensee, that we had great difficulty in making out what
he said next. We gathered, however, that some Howadji,
travelling alone and on foot, had once gone in search of this

' Not only near this nameless town, but in many other parts between Abou
Simbel and Phike, we found the old alluvial soil lying as high as irori'i vv
to 30 feet above the level of the present inundations,

* Ar, Birbeh^ Temple,

BACK THROUGH NUBIA. 363

Birbeh, and never come back. Was he lost ? Was he killed ?
— Who could say ?

" It was a long time ago," said the man with the beads.
" It was a long time ago, and he took no guide with him."

We would have given much to trace the river to its source,
and Search for this unknown temple in the desert. But it is
one of the misfortunes of this kind of travelling that one cannot
easily turn aside from the beaten track. The hot season is
approaching ; the river is running low ; the daily cost of the
dahabeeyah is exorbitant ; and in Nubia, where little or nothing
can be bought in the way of food, the dilatory traveller risks
starvation. It was something, however, to have seen with one's
own eyes that the Nile, instead of flowing for a distance of i 200
miles unfed by any affluent, had here received the waters of a
tributary.^

To those who have a south breeze behind them, the temples
must now follow in quick succession. We, however, achieved
them by degrees, and rejoiced when our helpless dahabeeyah
lay within rowing reach of anything worth seeing. Thus we
pull down one day to Maharrakeh — in itself a dull ruin ; but
picturesquely desolate. Seen as one comes up the bank on
landing, two parallel rows of columns stand boldly up against
the sky, supporting a ruined entablature. In the foreground, a
few stunted Dom-palms starve in an arid soil. The barren
desert closes in the distance.

We are beset here by an insolent crowd of savage-looking
men and boys, and impudent girls with long frizzy hair and
Nubian fringes, who pester us with beads and pebbles ; dance,
shout, slap their legs and clap their hands in our faces ; and
pelt us when we go away. One ragged warrior brandishes an
antique brass-mounted firelock full six foot long in the barrel,
and some of the others carry slender spears.

The Temple — a late Roman structure — would seem to have

1 "The Nile receives its last tributary, the Atbara, in Lat. 17° 42' N.,
at the northern extremity of the peninsular tract anciently called the island
of Meroe, and thence flows N. (a single stream without the least accession)
through 12 degrees of latitude; or, following its winding course, at least
1200 miles, to the sea." — Blaclcie's Imperial Gazetteer, 1861. A careful
survey of the country would probably bring to light the dry beds of rpany
li:^ore such tributaries as the one 4escribed ^bov?,

364 BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

been wrecked by earthquake before it was completed. The
masonry is all in the rough — pillars as they came from the
quarry ; capitals blocked out, waiting for the carver. These
unfinished ruins — of which every stone looks new, as if the
work was still in progress — affect one's imagination strangely.
On a fallen wall south of the portico, the Idle Man detected
some remains of a Greek inscription ; ^ but for hieroglyphic
characters, or cartouches by which to date the building, we
looked in vain.^

Dakkeh comes next in order ; then Gerf Hossayn, Dendoor,
and Kalabsheh. Arriving at Dakkeh soon after sunrise, we find
the whole population — screaming, pushing, chattering, laden
with eggs, pigeons, and gourds for sale — drawn up to receive
us. There is a large sand island in the way here ; so we moor
about a mile above the Temple.

We first saw the twin pylons of Dakkeh some weeks ago
from the deck of the Philae, and we then likened them to the
majestic towers of Edfu. Approaching them now by land,
we are surprised to find them so small. It is a brilliant, hot
morning ; and our way lies by the river, between the lentil
slope and the castor-berry patches. There are flocks of pigeons

1 Of this wall, Burckhardt notices that " it has fallen down, apparently
from some sudden and violent concussion, as the stones are lying on the
ground in layers, as when placed in the wall ; a proof that they must have
fallen all at once." — Travels in Nubia: Ed. 18 19, p. 100. But he has
not observed the inscription, which is in large characters, and consists of
three lines on three separate layers of stones. The Idle Man copied the
original upon the spot, which copy has since been identified with an ex-voto
of a Roman soldier published in Boeckh's Corpus Inscr. Grcec, of which
the following is a translation : —

" The vow of Verecundus the soldier, and his most pious parents, and
Gaius his httle brother, and the rest of his brethren."

2 A clue, however, might possibly be found to the date. There is a rudely
sculptured tableau — the only piece of sculpture in the place — on a detached
wall near the standing columns. It represents Isis worshipped by a youth
in a short toga. Both figures are lumpish and ill-modelled ; and Isis,
seated under a conventional fig-tree, wears her hair erected in stiff rolls
over the forehead, like a diadem. It is the face and stiffly-dressed hair of
Marciana, the sister of Trajan, as shown upon the well-known coin engraved
in Smith's Die. of Greek and Roman Biography, vol. ii. p. 939. Mahar-
rakeh is the Hiera Sycaminos, or Place of the Steered Fig-tree, where epds
the Itinerary of Antoriinqs,

BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

365

flying low overhead ; barking dogs and crowing cocks in the
village close by ; and all over the path, hundreds of beetles —
real, live scarabs, black as coal and busy as ants — rolling their
clay pellets up from the water's edge to the desert. If we
were to examine a score or so of these pellets, we should here
and there find one that contained no eggs ; for it is a curious
fact that the scarab-beetle makes and rolls her pellets, whether
she has an egg to deposit or not. The female beetle, though
assisted by the male, is said to do the heavier share of the
pellet-rolling ; and if evening comes on before her pellet is
safely stowed away, she will sleep holding it with her feet all
night, and resume her labour in the morning.^

The Temple here — begun by an Ethiopian king named
Arkaman (Ergamenes), about whom Diodorus has a long story
to tell, and carried on by the Ptolemies and Caesars — stands in
a desolate open space to the north of
the village, and is approached by an
avenue, the walls of which are constructed
with blocks from some earlier building.
The whole of this avenue and all the
waste ground for three or four hundred
yards round about the Temple, is not
merely strewn but piled with fragments
of pottery, pebbles, and large smooth
stones of porphyry, alabaster, basalt,
and a kind of marble like verde antico.
These stones are puzzling. They look
as if they might be fragments of statues
that had been rolled and polished by
ages of friction in the bed of a torrent.
Among the potsherds we find some

inscribed fragments, like those of Elephantine.' Of the Temple
I will only say that, as masonry, it is better put together than

^ See " The Scarabaus Sacer" by C. Woodrooffe, B.A., — a paper (based
on notes by the late Rev. C. Johns) read before the Winchester and Hamp-
shire Scientific and Literary Society, Nov. 8, 1875. Privately printed.

^ See chap. x. p. 181. Dakkeh (the Pselcis of the Greeks and Romans,
the Pselk of the Egyptians) was at one time regarded as the confine of
Egypt and Ethiopia, and would seem to have been a great military station.

366 BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

*
any work of the XVIIIth or XlXth Dynasties with which I
am acquainted. The sculptures, however, are atrocious. Such
mis-shapen hieroglyphs ; such dumpy, smirking goddesses ;
such clownish kings in such preposterous head-dresses, we have
never seen till now. The whole thing, in short, as regards
sculpturesque style, is the Ptolemaic out-Ptolemied.

Rowing round presently to Kobban — the river running
wide, with the sand island between — we land under the walls
of a huge crude-brick structure, black with age, which at first
sight looks quite shapeless ; but which proves to be an ancient
Egyptian fortress, buttressed, towered, loopholed, finished at
the angles with the invariable moulded torus, and surrounded
by a deep dry moat, which is probably yet filled each summer
by the inundation.

Now of all rare things in the valley of the Nile, a purely
secular ruin is the rarest ; and this, with the exception of some
foundations of dwellings here and there, is the first we have
seen. It is probably very, very old ; as old as the days of
Thothmes III, whose name is found on some scattered blocks
about a quarter of a mile away, and who built two similar
fortresses at Semneh, thirty-five miles above Wady Halfeh.
It may even be a thousand years older still, and date from the
time of Amenemhat III, whose name is also found on a stela
near Kobban.^ For here was once an ancient city, when

The inscribed potsherds here are chiefly receipts and accounts of soldiers'
pay. The walls of the Temple outside, and of the chambers within, abound
also in free-hand graffiti, most of which are written in red ink. We
observed some that appeared to be trilingual. The Writer copied the two
following from over a doorway. The first is supposed by Dr. Birch to be
in Ethiopian demotic, and is apparently a name. The characters of the
second appear to be quite unknown : —

^ " Less than a quarter of a mile to the south are the ruins of a small
sandstone Temple with clustered columns ; and on the way, near the
village, you pass a stone stela of Amenemha III, mentioning his eleventh
year." — Murray's Handbook for Egypt, t^. 481. M. Maspero, writing of

BA CK THRO UGH NUBIA. 367

Pselcis (now Dakkeh) was but a new suburb on the opposite
bank. The name of this ancient city is lost, but it is by some
supposed to be identical with the Metacompso of Ptolemy.*
As the suburb grew, the mother town declined, and in time,
the suburb became the city, and the city became the suburb.
The scattered blocks aforesaid, together with the remains of
a small Temple, yet mark the position of the elder city.

The walls of this most curious and interesting fortress have

Thothmes III, says, "Sons fils et successeur, Amenhotep III, fit construire
en face de Pselkis une forteresse importante." — Hist. Ancienne des Peuples
de r Orient. Chap. iii. p. 113.

At Kobban also was found the famous stela of Rameses II, called the
Stela of Dakkeh ;" see chap. xv. p. 265. In this inscription, a cast from
which is at the Louvre, Rameses II is stated to have caused an artesian
well to be made in the desert between this place and Gebel Oellaky,
in order to facilitate the working of the gold mines of those parts.

1 " According to Ptolemy, Metachompso should be opposite Pselcis,
where there are extensive brick ruins. If so, Metachompso and Contra
Pselcis must be the same town." — Topography of Thebes, etc. ; Sir G.
Wilkinson. Ed. 1835, p. 488. M. Vivien de St. Martin is, however,
of opinion that the island of Derar, near Maharrakeh, is the true Meta-
chompso. See Le Nord de P Afrique, section vi. p. 161. Be this as it
may, we at all events know of one great siege that this fortress sustained,
and of one great battle fought beneath its walls. "The Ethiopians,"
says Strabo, " having taken advantage of the withdrawal of part of
the Roman forces, surprised and took Syene, Elephantine, and Philae,
enslaved the inhabitants, and threw down the statues of Caesar. But
Petronius, marching with less than 10,000 infantry and 800 horse against
an army of 30,000 men, compelled them to retreat to Pselcis. He
then sent deputies to demand restitution of what they had taken, and
the reasons which had induced them to begin the war. On their alleging
that they had been ill treated by the monarchs, he answered that these
were not the sovereigns of the country — but Caesar. When they desired
three days for consideration and did nothing which they were bound to do,
Petronius attacked and compelled them to fight. They soon fled, being
badly commanded and badly armed, for they carried large shields made of
raw hides, and hatchets for offensive weapons. Part of the insurgents
were driven into the city, others fled into the uninhabited country, and such
as ventured upon the passage of the river escaped to a neighbouring island,
where there were not many crocodiles, on account of the current. . . .
Petronius then attacked Pselcis, and took it." — Strabo's Geography,
Bohn's translation, 1857, vol. iii. pp. 267-8. This island to which the
insurgents fled may have been the large sand island which here still
occupies the middle of the river, and obstructs the approach to Dakkeh.
Or they may have fled to the island of Derar, seven miles higher up,
Strabo does not give the name of the island.

368 £A CK 2 HRO VGH A UBIA.

probably lost much of their original height. They are in some
parts 30 feet thick, and nowhere less than 20. Vertical on
the inside, they are built at a buttress -slope outside, with
additional shallow buttresses at regular distances. These last,
as they can scarcely add to the enormous strength of the
original wall, were probably designed for effect. There are
two entrances to the fortress ; one in the centre of the north
wall, and one in the south. We enter the enclosure by the last-
named, and find ourselves in the midst of an immense parallelo-
gram measuring about 450 feet from east to west, and perhaps
300 feet from north to south.

All within these bounds is a wilderness of ruin. The
space looks large enough for a city, and contains what might
be the debris of a dozen cities. We climb huge mounds of
rubbish ; skirt cataracts of broken pottery ; and stand on the
brink of excavated pits, honeycombed forty feet below with
brick foundations. Over these mounds and at the bottom of
these pits, swarm men, women, and children, filling and carry-
ing away basket-loads of rubble. The dust rises in clouds
The noise, the heat, the confusion, are indescribable. One
pauses, bewildered, seeking in vain to discover in this mighty
maze any indication of a plan. It is only by an effort that one
gradually realises how the place is but a vast shell, and how
all these mounds and pits mark the site of what was once a
huge edifice rising tower above tower to a central keep, such
as we see represented in the battle-subjects of Abou Simbel
and Thebes.

That towered edifice and central keep — quarried, broken
up, carried away piecemeal, reduced to powder, and spread
over the land as manure — has now disappeared almost to its
foundations. Only the well in the middle of the enclosure,
and the great wall of circuit, remain. That wall is doomed,
and will by and by share the fate of the rest. The well, which
must have been very deep, is choked with rubbish to the brim.
Meanwhile, in order to realise what the place in its present con-
dition is like, one need but imagine how the Tower of London
would look if the whole of the inner buildings — White Tower,
Chapel, Armoury, Governor's Quarters and all — were levelled
in shapeless ruin, and only the outer walls and moat were left

BACK THROUGH NUBIA. 369

Built up against the inner side of the wall of circuit are
the remains of a series of massive towers, the tops of which,
as they are, strangely enough, shorter than the external structure,
can never have communicated with the battlements, unless by
ladders. The finest of these towers, together with a magnificent
fragment of wall, faces the eastern desert.

Going out by the north entrance, we find the sides of the
gateway, and even the steps leading down into the moat, in
perfect preservation ; while at the base of the great wall, on
the outer side facing the river, there yet remains a channel or
conduit about two feet square, built and roofed with stone,
which in Murray is described as a water-gate.

The sun is high, the heat is overwhelming, the felucca
waits ; and we turn reluctantly away, knowing that between
here and Cairo we shall see no more curious relic of the far-off
past than this dismantled stronghold. It is a mere mountain
of unburnt brick ; altogether unlovely ; admirable only for the
gigantic strength of its proportions ; pathetic only in the
abjectness of its ruin. Yet it brings the lost ages home to
one's imagination in a way that no Temple could ever bring
them. It dispels for a moment the historic glamour of the
sculptures, and compels us to remember those nameless and
forgotten millions, of whom their rulers fashioned soldiers in
time of war and builders in time of peace.

Our adventures by the way are few and far between ; and
we now rarely meet a dahabeeyah. Birds are more plentiful
than when we were in this part of the river a few weeks ago.
We see immense flights of black and white cranes congregated
at night on the sandbanks ; and any number of quail may be
had for the shooting. It is matter for rejoicing when the Idle
Man goes out with his gun and brings home a full bag ; for
our last sheep was killed before we started for Wady Halfeh,
and our last poultry ceased cackling at Abou Simbel.

One morning early, we see a bride taken across the river in
a big boat full of women and girls, who are clapping their
hands and shrilling the tremulous zaghareet. The bride — a
chocolate beauty with magnificent eyes — wears a gold brow-
pendant and nose-ring, and has her hair newly plaited in
hundreds of tails, finished off at the ends with mud pellets

2 B

370 BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

daubed with yellow ochre. • She stands surrounded by her
companions, proud of her finery, and pleased to be stared at
by the Ingleezeh.

About this time, also, we see one night a wild sort of
festival going on for some miles along both sides of the river.
Watch-fires break out towards twilight, first on this bank, then
on that ; becoming brighter and more numerous as the darkness
deepens. By and by, when we are going to bed, we hear
sounds of drumming on the eastern bank, and see from afar a
torchlight procession and dance. The effect of this dance of
torches — for it is only the torches that are visible — is quite
diabolic. The lights flit and leap as if they were alive ;
circling, clustering, dispersing, bobbing, poussetting, pursuing
each other at a gallop, and whirling every now and then
through the air, like rockets. Late as it is, we would fain put
ashore and see this orgy more nearly ; but Reis Hassan shakes
his head. The natives hereabout are said to be quarrelsome ;
and if, as it is probable, they are celebrating the festival of some
local saint, we might be treated as intruders.

Coming at early morning to Gerf Hossayn, we m^e our
way up to the Temple, which is excavated in the face of a
limestone cliff, a couple of hundred feet, perhaps, above the
river. A steep path, glaring hot in the sun, leads to a terrace
in the rock ; the Temple being approached through the ruins
of a built-out portico and an avenue of battered colossi. It is
a gloomy place within — an inferior edition so to say, of the
Great Temple of Abou Simbel ; and of the same date. It
consists of a first hall supported by Osiride pillars, a second
and smaller hall with square columns ; a smoke-blackened
sanctuary ; and two side-chambers. The Osiride colossi, which
stand 20 feet high without the entablature over their heads or
the pedestal under their feet, are thick-set, bow-legged, and
mis-shapen. Their faces would seem to have been painted
black originally ; while those of the avenue outside have dis-
tinctly Ethiopian features. One seems to detect here, as at
Derr and Wady Sabooah, the work of provincial sculptors ;
just as at Abou Simbel one recognises the master-style of the
artists of the Theban Ramesseum.

The side-chambers at Gerf Hossayn are infested with bats.

372

BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

These bats are the great sight of the place, and have their
appointed showman. We find him waiting for us with an end of
tarred rope, which he flings, blazing, into the pitch-dark door-
way. For a moment we see the whole ceiling hung, as it were,
with a close fringe of white, filmy-looking pendants. But it is
only for a moment. The next instant the creatures are all in
motion, dashing out madly in our faces like driven snowflakes.
We picked up a dead one afterwards, when the rush was over,
and examined it by the outer daylight — a lovely little creature,
white and downy, with fine transparent wings, and little pink
feet, and the prettiest mousey mouth imaginable.

TEMPLE OF DEN DOOR.

Bordered with dwarf palms, acacias, and henna-bushes, the
cliffs between Gerf Hossayn and Dendoor stand out in detached
masses so like ruins that sometimes we can hardly believe they
are rocks. At Dendoor, when the sun is setting and a delicious
gloom is stealing up the valley, we visit a tiny Temple on the
western bank. It stands out above the river surrounded by a
wall of enclosure, and consists of a single pylon, a portico, two

BACK THROUGH NUBIA. 373

little chambers, and a sanctuary. The whole thing is Hke an
exquisite toy, so covered with sculptures, so smooth, so new-
looking, so admirably built. Seeing them half by sunset, half
by dusk, it matters not that these delicately-wrought bas-reliefs
are of the Decadence school.^ The rosy half-light of an
Egyptian after-glow covers a multitude of sins, and steeps the
whole in an atmosphere of romance.

Wondering what has happened to the climate, we wake
shivering next morning an hour or so before break of day, and,
for the first time in several weeks, taste the old early chill upon
the air. When the sun rises, we find ourselves at Kalabsheh,
having passed the limit of the Tropic during the night. Hence-
forth, no matter how great the heat may be by day, this chill
invariably comes with the dark hour before dawn.

The usual yelling crowd, with the usual beads, baskets,
eggs, and pigeons, for sale, greets us on the shore at Kalabsheh.
One of the men has a fine old two-handed sword in a shabby
blue velvet sheath, for which he asks five Napoleons. It looks
as if it might have belonged to a crusader. Some of the
women bring buffalo-cream in filthy-looking black skins slung
round their waists like girdles. The cream is excellent ; but
the skins temper one's enjoyment of the unaccustomed dainty.

There is a magnificent Temple here, and close by, excavated
in the cliff, a rock-cut Speos, the local name of which is Bayt-
el-Weli. The sculptures of this famous Speos have been more
frequently described and engraved than almost any sculptures
in Egypt. The procession of Ethiopian tribute-bearers, the
assault of the Amorite city, the Triumph of Rameses, are
familiar not only to every reader of Wilkinson, but to every
visitor passing through the Egyptian Rooms of the British
Museum. Notwithstanding the casts that have been taken
from them, and the ill-treatment to which they have been
subjected by natives and visitors, they are still beautiful. The
colour of those in the roofless courtyard, though so perfect when

1 " C'est un ouvrage non acheve du temps de I'empereur Auguste. Quoi-
que peu important par son etendue, ce monument m'a beaucoup interesse.
puisqu'il est entierement relatif k Tincarnation d'Osiris sous forme humaine,
sur la terre." — Lettres e'crites d'Egypte, etc. : Champollion. Paris, 1868.
p. 126.

374

BACK rn ROUGH NUBIA.

Bonomi executed his admirable facsimiles, has now almost
entirely peeled off; but in the portico and inner chambers it
is yet brilliant. An emerald green Osiris, a crimson Anubis,
and an Isis of the brightest chrome yellow, are astonishingly
pure and forcible in quality. As for the flesh-tones of the
Anubis, this was I believe the only instance I observed of a
true crimson in Egyptian pigments.

Between the Speos of Bayt-el-Welly and the neighbouring
Temple of Kalabsheh there lies about half-a-mile of hilly path-
way and a gulf of 1400 years. Rameses ushers us into the
presence of Augustus, and we pass, as it were, from an oratory
m the Great House of Pharaoh to the presence-chamber of the
Caesars.

But if the decorative work in the presence-chamber of the
Csesars was anything like the decorative work in the Temple
of Kalabsheh, then the taste thereof was of the vilest. Such a

masquerade of deities ; such striped and spotted and cross-
barred robes ; such outrageous head-dresses ; such crude and
violent colouring,^ we have never seen the like cf As for the

^ I observed mauve here, for the first and only time ; and very brilliant
ultramarine. There are also traces of gilding on many of the figures.

376 BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

goddesses, they are gaudier than the dancing damsels of Luxor ;
while the kings balance on their heads diadems compounded of
horns, moons, birds, balls, beetles, lotus-blossoms, asps, vases, and
feathers. The Temple, however, is conceived on a grand scale.
It is the Karnak of Nubia. But it is a Karnak that has
evidently been visited by a shock of earthquake far more severe
than that which shook the mighty pillars of the Hypostyle
Hall and flung down the obelisk of Hatasu. From the river,
it looks like a huge fortress ; but seen from the threshold of
the main gateway, it is a wilderness of ruin. Fallen blocks,
pillars, capitals, entablatures, lie so extravagantly piled, that
there is not one spot in all those halls and courtyards upon
which it is possible to set one's foot on the level of the original
pavement. Here, again, the earthquake seems to have come
before the work was completed. There are figures outlined on
the walls, but never sculptured. Others have been begun, but
never finished. You can see where the chisel stopped — you
can even detect which was the last mark it made on the surface.
One traces here, in fact, the four processes of wall decoration.
In some places the space is squared off and ruled by the
mechanic ; in others, the subject is ready drawn within those
spaces by the artist. Here the sculptor has carried it a stage
farther ; yonder the painter has begun to colour it.

More interesting, however, than aught else at Kalabsheh is
the Greek inscription of Silco of Ethiopia.^ This inscription —
made famous by the commentaries of Niebuhr and Letronne
— was discovered by M. Gau in A.D. 1818. It consists of 21
lines very neatly written in red ink, and it dates from the sixth
century of the Christian era. It commences thus : —

I, Silco, puissant king of the Nubians and all the Ethiopians,

I came twice as far as Talmis^ and Taphis.^

I fought against the Blemyes,* and God granted me the victory.

^ See chap. xii. p. 221.

2 Talmis: (Kalabsheh). 3 Taphis : (Tafah).

* Blemyes : — The Blemyes were a nomadic race of Berbers, supposed
to be originally of the tribe of Bilmas of Tibbous in the central desert, and
settled as early as the time of Eratosthenes in that part of the Valley of
the Nile which lies between the First and Second Cataracts. See Le Nord
de lAfrique, by M. V. DE St. Martin. Paris, 1863, Section III, p. IZ.

BACK THROUGH NUBIA. 377

I vanquished them a second time ; and the first time
I established myself completely with my troops.
I vanquished them, and they supplicated me.
I made peace with them ; and they swore to me by their idols.
I trusted them ; because they are a people of good faith.
Then I returned to my dominions in the Upper Country.
For I am a king.

Not only am I no follower in the train of other kings,
But I go before them.
As for those who seek strife against me,

I give them no peace in their homes till they entreat my pardon.
For I am a lion on the plains, and a goat upon the mountains,
etc. etc. etc.

The historical value of this inscription is very great. It
shows that in the sixth century, while the native inhabitants of
this part of the Valley of the Nile yet adhered to the ancient
Egyptian faith, the Ethiopians of the south were professedly
Christian.

The descendants of the Blemmys are a fine race ; tall,
strong, and of a rich chocolate complexion. Strolling through
the village at sunset, we see the entire population — old men
sitting at their doors ; young men lounging and smoking ;
children at play. The women, with glittering white teeth and
liquid eyes, and a profusion of gold and silver ornaments on
neck and brow, come out with their little brown babies astride
on hip or shoulder, to stare as we go by. One sick old woman,
lying outside her hut on a palm-wood couch, raises herself for
a moment on her elbow — then sinks back with a weary sigh,
and turns her face to the wall. The mud dwellings here are
built in and out of a maze of massive stone foundations, the
remains of buildings once magnificent. Some of these walls
are built in concave courses ; each course of stones, that is to
say, being depressed in the centre, and raised at the angles ;
which mode of construction was adopted in order to offer less
resistance when shaken by earthquake.^

We observe more foundations built thus, at Tafah, where
we arrive next morning. As the masons' work at Tafah is of
late Roman date, it follows that earthquakes were yet frequent
in Nubia at a period long subsequent to the great shock of
B.C. 27, mentioned by Eusebius. Travellers are too ready to
^ See The Habitations of Man in all Ages. V. LE Due. Chap. i.x. p. 93

378

BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

ascribe everything in the way of ruin to the fury of Camb}'ses
and the pious rage of the early Christians. Nothing, however,
is easier than to distinguish between the damage done to the
monuments by the hand of man and the damage caused by
subterraneous upheaval. Mutilation is the rule in the one
case ; displacement in the other. At Denderah, for example,
the injury done is wholly wilful ; at Abou Simbel, it is wholly
accidental ; at Karnak, it is both wilful and accidental. As
for Kalabsheh, it is clear that no such tremendous havoc
could have been effected by human means without the aid of
powerful rams, fire, or gunpowder ; any of which must have left
unmistakable traces.

RUINED TEMPLE AT TAKAH, NUBIA.

At Tafah there are two little temples ; one in picturesque
ruin, one quite perfect, and now used as a stable. There are
also a number of stone foundations, separate, quadrangular,
subdivided into numerous small chambers, and enclosed in
boundary walls, some of which are built in the concave courses
just named. These sub - structions, of which the Painter
counted eighteen, have long been the puzzle of travellers.^

1 They probably mark the site of a certain Coptic monastery described

BACK THROUGH NUBIA. 379

Tafah is charmingly placed ; and the seven miles which
divide it from Kalabsheh — once, no doubt, the scene of a
cataract — are perhaps the most picturesque on this side of
Wady Halfeh. Rocky islets in the river ; palm-groves, acacias,^
carobs, henna and castor-berry bushes, and all kinds of flower-
ing shrubs, along the edges of the banks ; fantastic precipices
riven and pinnacled, here rising abruptly from the water's edge,,
and there from the sandy plain, make lovely sketches whichever
way one turns. There are gazelles, it is said, in the ravines
behind Tafah ; and one of the natives — a truculent fellow in a
ragged shirt and dirty white turban — tells how, at a distance
of three hours up a certain glen, there is another Birbeh, larger
than either of these in the plain, and a great standing statue
taller than three men. Here, then, if the tale be true, is
another ready-made discovery for whoever may care to under-
take it.

This same native, having sold a necklace to the Idle Man
and gone away content with his bargain, comes back by and by
with half the village at his heels, requiring double price. This
modest demand being refused, he rages up and down like a
maniac ; tears off his turban ; goes through a wild manual
exercise with his spear ; then sits down in stately silence, with
his friends and neighbours drawn up in a semicircle behind him.

This, it seems, is Nubian for a challenge. He has thrown
down his gauntlet in form, and demands trial by combat. The
noisy crowd, meanwhile, increases every moment. Reis Hassan
looks grave, fearing a possible fracas ; and the Idle Man, who
is reading the morning service down below (for it is on a
Sunday morning) can scarcely be heard for the clamour outside.
In this emergency, it occurs to the Writer to send a message
ashore informing these gentlemen that the Howadjis are hold-
in an ancient Arabic MS. quoted by E. Quatremere, which says that " in
the town of Tafah there is a fine monastery called the monastery of
Ansoun. It is very ancient ; but so solidly built, that after so great a
number of years it still stands uninjured. Near this monastery, facing the
mountain, are situated fifteen villages." See Memoires Hist, et Geographiqiies
sur PEgypte et le Ahibz'e, par E. Quatremere. Paris, 181 1, vol. ii. p. 55.
The monastery and the villages were, doubtless, of Romano-Egyptian
construction, in the first instance, and may originally have been a sacred
College, like the sacred College at Philae.

38o BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

ing mosque in the dahabeeyah, and entreating them to be quiet
till the hour of prayer is past. The effect of the message,
strange to say, is instantaneous. The angry voices are at once
hushed. The challenger puts on his turban. The assembled
spectators squat in respectful silence on the bank. A whole
hour goes by thus, so giving the storm time to blow over ; and
when the Idle Man reappears on deck, his would-be adversary
comes forward quite pleasantly to discuss the purchase afresh.

It matters little how the affair ended ; but I believe he
was offered his necklace back in exchange for the money paid,
and preferred to abide by his bargain. It is as evidence of
the sincerity of the religious sentiment in the minds of a semi-
savage people,^ that I have thought the incident worth telling.

We are now less than forty miles from Philae ; but the
head wind is always against us, and the men's bread is
exhausted, and there is no flour to be bought in these Nubian
villages. The poor fellows swept out the last crumbs from the
bottom of their bread-chest three or four days ago, and are
now living on quarter-rations of lentil soup and a few dried
dates bought at Wady Halfeh. Patient and depressed, they
crouch silently beside their oars, or forget their hunger in sleep.
For ourselves, it is painful to witness their need, and still more
painful to be unable to help them. Talhamy, whose own stores
are at a low ebb, vows he can do nothing. It would take his
few remaining tins of preserved meat to feed fifteen men for
two days, and of flour he has barely enough for the Howadjis.
Hungry ? well, yes — no doubt they are hungry. But what of
that "^ They are Arabs ; and Arabs bear hunger as camels
bear thirst. It is nothing new to them. They have often
been hungry before — they will often be hungry again.
Enough ! It is not for the ladies to trouble themselves about
such fellows as these !

Excellent advice, no doubt ; but hard to follow. Not to

^ " The peasants of Tafa relate that they are the descendants of the
few Christian inhabitants of the city who embraced the Mohammedan faith
when the country was conquered by the followers of the Prophet ; the
greater part of their brethren having either fled or been put to death on
that event taking place. They are still called Oulad el Nusara, or the
Christian progeny." — Travels in Nubia: BURCKHARDT. London, 1819,
p. 121.

BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

^81

be troubled, and not to do what little we can for the poor lads,
is impossible. When that little means laying violent hands on
Talhamy's reserve of eggs and biscuits, and getting up lotteries
for prizes of chocolate and tobacco, that worthy evidently con-
siders that we have taken leave of our wits.

Under a burning sky, we touch for an hour or two at
Gertassee, and then push on for Dabod. The limestone
quarries at Gertassee are full of votive sculptures and inscrip-
tions ; and the little ruin — a mere cluster of graceful columns
supporting a fragment of cornice — stands high on the brink of
a cliff overhanging the river. Take it as you will, from above
or below, looking north or looking south, it makes a charming
sketch.

TEMPLE OF DABOd.

If transported to Dabod on that magic carpet of the fairy-
tale, one would take it for a ruin on the " beached margent "
of some placid lake in dreamland. It lies between two bends
of the river, which here flows wide, showing no outlet and
seeming to be girdled by mountains and palm-groves. The
Temple is small and uninteresting ; begun, like Dakkeh, by an
Ethiopian king, and finished by Ptolemies and Caesars. The
one curious thing about it is a secret cell, most cunningly

382 BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

devised. Adjoining the sanctuary is a dark side-chamber ; in
the floor of the side-chamber is a pit, once paved over ; in one
corner of the pit is a man-hole opening into a narrow passage;
and in the narrow passage are steps leading up to a secret
chamber constructed in the thickness of the wall. We saw
other secret chambers in other Temples ;^ but not one in which
the old approaches were so perfectly preserved.

From Dabod to Philae is but ten miles ; and we are bound
for Torrigur, which is two miles nearer. Now Torrigur is that
same village at the foot of the beautiful sand-drift, near which
we moored on our way up the river ; and here we are to stay
two days, followed by at least a week at Philae. No sooner,
therefore, have we reached Torrigur, than Reis Hassan and
three sailors start for Assuan to buy flour. Old Ali, Riskalli,
and Musa, whose homes lie in the villages round about, get
leave of absence for a week ; and we find ourselves reduced
all at once to a crew of five, with only Khaleefeh in command.
Five, however, are as good as fifty, when the dahabeeyah lies
moored and there is nothing to do ; and our five, having
succeeded in buying some flabby Nubian cakes and green
lentils, are now quite happ}'. So the Painter pitches his tent
at the top of the sand-drift ; and the Writer sketches the
ruined convent opposite ; and L. and the Little Lady write
no end of letters ; and the Idle Man, with Mehemet Ali for
a retriever, shoots quail ; and ever)'body is satisfied.

Hapless Idle Man ! — hapless, but homicidal. If he had
been content to shoot only quail, and had not taken to shooting
babies ! What possessed him to do it ? Not — not, let us hope
— an ill-directed ambition, foiled of crocodiles ! He went serene

^ In these secret chambers (the entrance to which was closed by a
block of masonry so perfectly fitted as to defy detection) were kept the
images of gold and silver and lapis lazuli, the precious vases, the sistrums,
the jewelled collars, and all the portable treasures of the Temples. We
saw a somewhat similar pit and small chamber in a corner of the Temple
of Dakkeh, and some very curious crypts and hiding places under the
floor of the dark chamber to the east of the Sanctuary at Philas, all of
course long since broken open and rifled. But we had strong reason to
believe that the Painter discovered the whereabouts of a hidden chamber
or passage to the west of the Sanctuary, yet closed, with all its treasures
probably intact. We had, however, no means of opening the wall, which
is of solid masonry.

BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

and smiling, with his gun under his arm, and Mehemet AH in his
wake. Who so Hght of heart as that Idle Man ? Who so light
of heel as that turbaned retriever ? We heard our sportsman
popping away presently in the barley. It was a pleasant sound,
for we knew his aim was true. " Every shot," said we, " means a
bird." W^e little dreamed that one of those shots meant a baby.

RL'INED CONVENT (cOPTIc) NEAR PHIL^.

All at once, a woman screamed. It was a sharp, sudden
scream, following a shot — a scream with a ring of horror in it.
Instantly it was caught up from point to point, growing in
volume and seeming to be echoed from every direction at
once. At the same moment, the bank became alive with
human beings. They seemed to spring from the soil — women
shrieking and waving their arms ; men running; all making
for the same goal. The Writer heard the scream, saw the
rush, and knew at once that a gun accident had happened.

A few minutes of painful suspense followed. Then

384 BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

Mehemet Ali appeared, tearing back at the top of his speed ;
and presently — perhaps five minutes later, though it seemed
like twenty — came the Idle Man ; walking very slowly and
defiantly, with his head up, his arms folded, his gun gone, and
an immense rabble at his heels.

Our scanty crew, armed with sticks, flew at once to the
rescue, and brought him off in safety. We then learned what
had happened.

A flight of quail had risen ; and as quail fly low, skimming
the surface of the grain and diving down again almost imme-
diately, he had taken a level aim. At the instant that he
fired, and in the very path of the quail, a woman and child
who had been squatting in the barley, sprang up screaming.
He at once saw the coming danger ; and, with admirable
presence of mind, drew the charge of his second barrel. He
then hid his cartridge-box and hugged his gun, determined to
hold it as long as possible. The next moment he was sur-
rounded, overpowered, had the gun wrenched from his grasp,
and received a blow on the back with a stone. Having
captured the gun, one or two of the men let go. It was then
that he shook off the rest, and came back to the boat. Mehemet
Ali at the same time flew to call a rescue. He, too, came in
for some hard knocks, besides having his shirt rent and his
turban torn off his head.

Here were we, meanwhile, with less than half our crew, a
private war on our hands, no captain, and one of our three
guns in the hands of the enemy. What a scene it was ! A
whole village, apparently a very considerable village, swarming
on the bank ; all hurrying to and fro ; all raving, shouting,
gesticulating. If we had been on the verge of a fracas at
Tafah, here we were threatened with a siege.

Drawing in the plank between the boat and the shore, we
held a hasty council of war.

The woman being unhurt, and the child, if hurt at ali,
hurt very slightly, we felt justified in assuming an injured tone,
calling the village to account for a case of cowardly assault,
and demanding instant restitution of the gun. We accordingly
sent Talhamy to parley with the head-man of the place and
pei-emptorily demand the gun. We also bade him add — and

BACK THROUGH NUBIA. 385

this we regarded as a master-stroke of policy — that if due
submission was immediately made, the Howadji, one of whom
was a Hakeem, would permit the father to bring his child on
board to have its hurts attended to.

Outwardly indifferent, inwardly not a little anxious, we
waited the event. Talhamy's back being towards the river,
we had the whole semicircle of swarthy faces full in view —
bent brows, flashing eyes, glittering teeth ; all anger, all scorn,
all defiance. Suddenly the expression of the faces changed —
the change beginning with those nearest the speaker, and
spreading gradually outwards. It was as if a wave had passed
over them. We knew then that our coup was made. Tal-
hamy returned. The villagers crowded round their leaders,
deliberating. Numbers now began to sit down ; and when
a Nubian sits down, you may be sure that he is no longer
dangerous.

Presently — after perhaps a quarter of an hour — the gun
was brought back uninjured, and an elderly man carrying a
blue bundle appeared on the bank. The plank was now put
across ; the crowd was kept off ; and the man with the bundle,
and three or four others, were allowed to pass.

The bundle being undone, a little brown imp of about four
years of age, with shaven head and shaggy scalp-lock, was
produced. He whimpered at first, seeing the strange white
faces ; but when offered a fig, forgot his terrors, and sat
munching it like a monkey. As for his wounds, they were
literally skin-deep, the shot having but slightly grazed his
shoulders in four or five places. The Idle Man, however,
solemnly sponged the scratches with warm water, and L.
covered them with patches of sticking - plaister. Finally,
the father was presented with a Napoleon ; the patient
was wrapped in one of his murderer's shirts ; and the first
act of the tragedy ended. The second and third acts were
to come.

When the Painter and the Idle Man talked the affair over,
they agreed that it was expedient, for the protection of future
travellers, to lodge a complaint against the village ; and this
mainly on account of the treacherous blow dealt from behind,
at a time when the Idle Man (who had not once attempted to

2 C

386 BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

defend himself) was powerless in the hands of a mob. They
therefore went next day to Assuan ; and the governor, charm-
ing as ever, promised that justice should be done. Meanwhile
we moved the dahabeeyah to Philae, and there settled down
for a week's sketching.

Next evening came a woful deputation from Torrigfir,
entreating forgiveness, and stating that fifteen villagers had
been swept off to prison.

The Idle Man explained that he no longer had anything to
do with it ; that the matter, in short, was in the hands of justice,
and would be dealt with according to law. Hereupon the
spokesman gathered up a handful of imaginary dust, and
made believe to scatter it on his head.

" O dragoman ! " he said, " tell the Howadji that there is
no law but his pleasure, and no justice but the will of the
Governor ! "

Summoned next morning to give evidence, the Idle Man
went betimes to Assuan, where he was received in private by
the Governor and Mudir. Pipes and coffee were handed, and
the usual civilities exchanged. The Governor then informed
his guest that fifteen men of Torrigur had been arrested ; and
that fourteen of them unanimously identified the fifteenth as
the one who struck the blow.

" And now," said the Governor, " before we send for the
prisoners, it will be as well to decide on the sentence. What
does his Excellency wish done to them ? "

The Idle Man was puzzled. How could he offer an opinion,
being ignorant of the Egyptian civil code ? and how could the
sentence be decided upon before the trial ?

The Governor smiled serenely.

" But," he said, " this is the trial."

Being an Englishman, it necessarily cost the Idle Man an
effort to realise the full force of this explanation — an explana-
tion which, in its sublime simplicity, epitomised the whole
system of the judicial administration of Egyptian law. He
hastened, however, to explain that he cherished no resent-
ment against the culprit or the villagers, and that his only
wish was to frighten them into a due respect for travellers in
general.

BACK THROUGH NUBIA. 387

The Governor hereupon invited the Mudir to suggest a
sentence ; and the Mudir — taking into consideration, as he said,
his Excellency's lenient disposition — proposed to award to the
fourteen innocent men one month's imprisonment each ; and to
the real offender two months' imprisonment, with a hundred
and fifty blows of the bastinado.

Shocked at the mere idea of such a sentence, the Idle Man'
declared that he must have the innocent set at liberty; but 1
consented that the culprit, for the sake of example, should be
sentenced to the one hundred and fifty blows — the punishment
to be remitted after the first few strokes had been dealt. Word'
was now given for the prisoners to be brought in.

The gaoler marched first, followed by two soldiers. Then
came the fifteen prisoners — I am ashamed to write it ! — chained
neck to neck in single file.

One can imagine how the Idle Man felt at this moment.

Sentence being pronounced, the fourteen looked as if they
could hardly believe their ears ; while the fifteenth, though con-
demned to his one hundred and fifty strokes (" seventy-five to
each foot," specified the Governor), was overjoyed to be let off
so easily.

He was then flung down ; his feet were fastened soles
uppermost ; and two soldiers proceeded to execute the sentence.
As each blow fell, he cried : " God save the Governor ! God
save the Mudir ! God save the Howadji ! "

When the sixth stroke had been dealt, the Idle Man turned
to the Governor and formally interceded for the remission of
the rest of the sentence. The Governor, as formally, granted
the request ; and the prisoners, weeping for joy, were set at
liberty.

The Governor, the Mudir, and the Idle Man then parted
with a profusion of compliments ; the Governor protesting that
his only wish was to be agreeable to the English, and that the
whole village should have been bastinadoed, had his Excellency
desired it.

We spent eight enchanted days at Philae ; and it so hap-
pened, when the afternoon of the eighth came round, that for

388 BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

the last few hours the Writer was alone on the island. Alone,
that is to say, with only a sailor in attendance, which was vir-
tually solitude ; and Philae is a place to which solitude adds an
inexpressible touch of pathos and remoteness.

PHILi« FROM THB SOUTH.

It has been a hot day, and there is dead calm on the river.
My last sketch finished, I wander slowly round from spot to
spot, saying farewell to Pharaoh's Bed — to the Painted Columns
— to every terrace, and palm, and shrine, and familiar point of
view. I peep once again into the mystic chamber of Osiris.
I see the sun set for the last time from the roof of the Temple
of Isis. Then, when all that wondrous flush of rose and gold
has died away, comes the warm afterglow. No words can
paint the melancholy beauty of Philae at this hour. The sur-
rounding mountains stand out jagged and purple against a pale
amber sky. The Nile is glassy. Not a breath, not a bubble,
troubles the inverted landscape. Every palm is twofold ; every
stone is doubled. The big boulders in mid-stream are reflected
so perfectly that it is impossible to tell where the rock ends and
the water begins. The Temples, meanwhile, have turned to a
subdued golden bronze ; and the pylons are peopled with shapes
that glow with fantastic life, and look ready to step down from
their places.

The solitude is perfect, and there is a magical stillness in
the air. I hear a mother crooning to her baby on the neigh-
bouring island — a sparrow twittering in its little nest in the
capital of a column below my feet — a vulture screaming plain-
tively among the rocks in the far distance.

BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

3«9

I look ; I listen ; I promise myself that I will remember it
all in years to come — all the solemn hills, these silent colon-
nades, these deep, quiet spaces of shadow, these sleeping palms.
Lingering till it is all but dark, I at last bid them farewell,
fearing lest I may behold them no more.

CHAPTER XX. .

SILSILIS AND EDFU.

CjOING, it cost US four days to struggle up from Assuan to
Mahatta ; returning, we slid down — thanks to our old friend
the Sheykh of the Cataract — in one short, sensational half hour.
He came — flat-faced, fishy-eyed, fatuous as ever — with his head
tied up in the same old yellow handkerchief, and with the same
chibouque in his mouth. He brought with him a following of
fifty stalwart Shellalees ; and under his arm he carried a tattered
red flag. This flag, on which were embroidered the crescent
and star, he hoisted with much solemnity at the prow.

Consigned thus to the protection of the Prophet ; windows
and tambooshy ^ shuttered up ; doors closed ; breakables re-
moved to a place of safety, and everything made snug, as if for
a storm at sea, we put off" from Mahatta at seven A.M. on a
lovely morning in the middle of March. The Philae, instead
of threading her way back through the old channels, strikes
across to the Libyan side, making straight for the Big Bab —
that formidable rapid which as yet we have not seen. All
last night we heard its voice in the distance ; now, at every stroke
of the oars, that rushing sound draws nearer.

The Sheykh of the Cataract is our captain, and his men
are our sailors to-day ; Reis Hassan and the crew having only
to sit still and look on. The Shellalees, meanwhile, row swiftly
and steadily. Already the river seems to be running faster
than usual ; already the current feels stronger under our keel.
And now, suddenly, there is sparkle and foam on the surface

1 Ar. Tambooshy — i.e. saloon sky-light.

SILSJUS AND EDFU. 391

yonder — there are rocks ahead ; rocks to right and left ; eddies
everywhere. The Sheykh lays down his pipe, kicks off his
shoes, and goes himself to the prow. His second in command
is stationed at the top of the stairs leading to the upper deck.
Six men take the tiller. The rowers are reinforced, and sit
two to each oar.

In the midst of these preparations, when everybody looks
grave, and even the Arabs are silent, we all at once find our-
selves at the mouth of a long and narrow strait — a kind of
ravine between two walls of rock — through which, at a steep
incline, there rushes a roaring mass of waters. The whole
Nile, in fact, seems to be thundering in wild waves down that
terrible channel.

It seems, at first sight, impossible that any dahabeeyah
should venture that way and not be dashed to pieces. Neither
does there seem room for boat and oars to pass. The Sheykh,
however, gives the word — his second echoes it — the men at
the helm obey. They put the dahabeeyah straight at that
monster mill-race. For one breathless second we seem to
tremble on the edge of the fall. Then the Phil^e plunges in
headlong !

We see the whole boat slope down bodily under our feet.
We feel the leap — the dead fall — the staggering rush forward.
Instantly the waves are foaming and boiling up on all sides,
flooding the lower deck, and covering the upper deck with
spray. The men ship their oars, leaving all to helm and
current ; and, despite the hoarse tumult, we distinctly hear
those oars scrape the rocks on either side.

Now the Sheykh, looking for the moment quite majestic,
stands motionless with uplifted arm ; for at the end of the pass
there is a sharp turn to the right — as sharp as a street corner
in a narrow London thoroughfare. Can the Philae, measuring
1 00 feet from stem to stern, ever round that angle in safety ?
Suddenly, the uplifted arm is waved — the Sheykh thunders
" Daffet ! " (helm) — the men, steady and prompt, put the helm
about — the boat, answering splendidly to the word of command,
begins to turn before we are out of the rocks ; then, shooting
round the corner at exactly the right moment, comes out safe
and sound, with only an oar broken !

392 SILSILIS AND EDFU.

Great is the rejoicing. Reis Hassan, in the joy of his
heart, runs to shake hands all round ; the Arabs burst into a
chorus of " Taibs " and " Salames " ; and Talhamy, coming up
all smiles, is set upon by half-a-dozen playful Shellalees, who
snatch his keffiyeh from his head, and carry it off as a trophy.
The only one unmoved is the Sheykh of the Cataract. His
momentary flash of energy over, he slouches back with the old
stolid face ; slips on his shoes ; drops on his heels ; lights his
pipe ; and looks more like an owl than ever.

We had fancied till now that the Cataract Arabs for their
own profit, and travellers for their own glory, had grossly ex-
aggerated the dangers of the Big Bab. But such is not the
case. The Big Bab is in truth a serious undertaking ; so
serious that I doubt whether any English boatmen would
venture to take such a boat down such a rapid, and between
such rocks, as the Shellalee Arabs took the Philae that day.

All dahabeeyahs, however, are not so lucky. Of thirty-four
that shot the fall this season, several had been slightly damaged,
and one was so disabled that she had to lie up at Assuan for a
fortnight to be mended. Of actual shipwreck, or injury to life
and limb, I do not suppose there is any real danger. The
Shellalees are wonderfully cool and skilful, and have abundant
practice. Our Painter, it is true, preferred rolling up his
canvases and carrying them round on dry land by way of the
desert ; but this was a precaution that neither he nor any of
us would have dreamed of taking on account of our own personal
safety. There is, in fact, little, if anything, to fear ; and the
traveller who foregoes the descent of the Cataract, foregoes a
very curious sight, and a very exciting adventure.

At Assuan we bade farewell to Nubia and the blameless
Ethiopians, and found ourselves once more traversing the Nile
of Egypt. If instead of five miles of Cataract we had crossed
five hundred miles of sea or desert, the change could not have
been more complete. We left behind us a dreamy river, a
silent shore, an ever-present desert. Returning, we plunged
back at once into the midst of a fertile and populous region.
All day long, now, we see boats on the river ; villages on the
banks ; birds on the wing ; husbandmen on the land ; men
and women, horses, camels and asses, passing perpetually to

SILSIUS AND EDFU. 393

and fro on the towing-path. There is always something
moving, something doing. The Nile is running low, and the
shadufs — three deep, now — are in full swing from morning till
night. Again the smoke goes up from clusters of unseen huts
at close of day. Again we hear the dogs barking from hamlet
to hamlet in the still hours of the night. Again, towards
sunset, we see troops of girls coming down to the river-side
with their water-jars on their heads. Those Arab maidens,
when they stand with garments tightly tucked up and just their
feet in the water, dippiiij^ the j^oollah at arm's length in the
fresher gush of the current, almost tempt one's pencil into the
forbidden paths of caricature.

Kom Ombo is a magnificent torso. It was as large once
as Denderah — perhaps larger ; for, being on the same grand
scale, it was a double Temple and dedicated to two Gods,
Horus and Sebek ;^ the Hawk and the Crocodile. Now there
remain only a few giant columns buried to within eight or ten
feet of their gorgeous capitals ; a superb fragment of architrave ;
one broken wave of sculptured cornice, and some fallen blocks
graven with the names of Ptolemies and Cleopatras.

A great double doorway, a hall of columns, and a double
sanctuary, are said to be yet perfect, though no longer accessible.
The roofing blocks of three halls, one behind the other, and a
few capitals, are yet visible behind the portico. What more
may lie buried below the surface, none can tell. We only
know that an ancient city and a mediaeval hamlet have been
slowly engulfed ; and that an early Temple, contemporary
with the Temple of Amada, once stood within the sacred
enclosure. The sand here has been accumulating for 2000
years. It lies forty feet deep, and has never been excavated.
It will never be excavated now ; for the Nile is gradually
sapping the bank, and carrying away piecemeal from below
what the desert has buried from above. Half of one noble
pylon — a cataract of sculptured blocks — strews the steep slope
from top to bottom. The other half hangs suspended on the

^ " Sebek est un dieu solaire. Dans un papyrus de Boulak, il est
appeld fils d'Isis, et il combat les ennemis d'Osiris ; c'est une assimilation
complete k Horus, et c'est k ce titre qu'il etait adore k Ombos." — Die. Arch.
P. PlERRET. Paris, 1875.

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SILSILIS AND EDFU. 395

brink of the precipice. It cannot hang so much longer. A
day must soon come when it will collapse with a crash, and
thunder down like its fellow.

Between Kom Ombo and Silsilis, we lost our Painter. Not
that he either strayed or was stolen ; but that, having accom-
plished the main object of his journey, he was glad to seize
the first opportunity of getting back quickly to Cairo. That
opportunity — represented by a noble Duke honeymooning with
a steam -tug — happened half-way between Kom Ombo and
Silsilis. Painter and Duke being acquaintances of old, the
matter was soon settled. In less than a quarter of an hour,
the big picture and all the paraphernalia of the studio were
transported from the stern -cabin of the Philae to the stern-cabin
of the steam-tug ; and our Painter — fitted out with an ex-
tempore canteen, a cook-boy, a waiter, and his fair share of
the necessaries of life — was soon disappearing gaily in the
distance at the rate of twenty miles an hour. If the Happy
Couple, so weary of head -winds, so satiated with Temples,
followed that vanishing steam-tug with eyes of melancholy
longing, the Writer at least asked nothing better than to drift
on with the Philae.

Still, the Nile is long, and life is short ; and the tale told
by our logbook was certainly not encouraging. When we
reached Silsilis on the morning of the 1 7th of March, the north
wind had been blowing with only one day's intermission since
the 1st of February.

At Silsilis, one looks in vain for traces of that great barrier
which once blocked the Nile at this point. The stream is
narrow here, and the sandstone cliffs come down on both sides
to the water's edge. In some places there is space for a
footpath ; in others, none. There are also some sunken rocks
in the bed of the river — upon one of which, by the way, a
Cook's steamer had struck two days before. But of such a
mass as could have dammed the Nile, and, by its disruption
not only have caused the river to desert its bed at Philae,^ but
have changed the whole physical and climatic conditions of
Lower Nubia, there is no sign whatever.

The Arabs here show a rock fantastically quarried in the
^ See chap. xi. p. 203.

396 SI LSI LIS AND EDFU.

shape of a gigantic umbrella, to which they pretend some king
of old attached one end of a chain with which he barred the
Nile. It may be that in this apocryphal legend there survives
some memory of the ancient barrier.

The cliffs of the western bank are rich in memorial niches,
votive shrines, tombs, historical stelae, and inscriptions. These
last date from the Vlth to the XXIInd Dynasties. Some of
the tombs and alcoves are very curious. Ranged side by side
in a long row close above the river, and revealing glimpses of
seated figures and gaudy decorations within, they look like
private boxes with their occupants. In most of these we found
mutilated triads of Gods,^ sculptured and painted ; and in one
larger than the rest were three niches, each containing three
deities.

The great Speos of Horemheb, the last Pharaoh of the
XVIIIth Dynasty, lies farthest north, and the memorial shrines
of the Rameses family lie farthest south of the series. The
first is a long gallery, like a cloister supported on four square
columns ; and is excavated parallel with the river. The walls
inside and out are covered with delicately executed sculptures
in low relief, some of which yet retain traces of colour. The
triumph of Horemheb returning from conquest in the land
of Kush, and the famous subject on the south wall described
by Mariette ^ as one of the few really lovely things in Egyptian
art, have been too often engraved to need description. The
votive shrines of the Rameses family are grouped all together
in a picturesque nook green with bushes to the water's edge.
There are three, the work of Seti I, Rameses II, and Menepthah
— lofty alcoves, each like a little proscenium, with painted
cornices and side pillars, and groups of Kings and Gods still

1 « Le point de depart de la mythologie egyptienne est une Triade."
Champollion, Lettres d'Egypte, etc., XP Lettre. Paris, 1868. These
Triads are best studied at Gerf Hossayn and Kalabsheh.

2 " L'un (paroi du sud) represente une deesse nourissant de son lait
divin le roi Horus, encore enfant. L'Egypte n'a jamais, comme la Gr^ce,
atteint I'ideal du beau . . . mais en tant qu'art Egyptien, le bas-relief du
Speos de Gebel-Silsileh est une des plus belles ceuvres que Ton puisse voir.
Nulle part, en effet, la ligne n'est plus pure, et il rfegne dans ce tableau une
certaine douceur tranquille qui charme et etonne k la fois." — Itin^raire de
la Haut Egypte. A. Mariette: 1872, p. 246.

SILSILIS AND EDFU.

397

bright with colour. In most of the votive sculptures of Silsilis
there figure two deities but rarely seen elsewhere ; namely
Sebek, the Crocodile God, and Hapi-mu, the lotus -crowned
God of the Nile. This last was the tutelary deity of the spot,
and was worshipped at Silsilis with special rites. Hymns in
his honour are found carved here and there upon the rocks.^
Most curious of all, however, is a Goddess named Ta-ur-t,^
represented in one of the side subjects of the shrine of
Rameses 11. This charming person, who has the body of a
hippopotamus and the face of a woman, wears a tie-wig and

TA-UR-T (silsilis).

TA-IIR-T (pHIL>K).

a robe of state with five capes, and looks like a cross between
a Lord Chancellor and a Coachman. Behind her stand Thoth
and Nut ; all three receiving the homage of Queen Nefertari,
who advances with an offering of two sistrums. As a hippopo-

Hymn to the Nile — translation by

* See Sallier Papyjus No. 2.
C. Maspero. 4to Paris, i868.

2 Ta-ur-t, or Apet the Great. " Cette Deesse k corps d'hippopotame
debout et k mamelles pendantes, parait etre une sorte de deesse nourrice.
Elle semble, dans le bas temps, je ne dirai pas se substituer a Maut, mais
completer le role de cette deesse. Elle est nommee la grande nourrice ;
et presidait aux chambres ou etaient represente'es les naissances des jeunes
divinit^s." — Diet. Arch. P. Pierret. Paris, 1875.

" In the heavens, this Goddess personified the constellation Ursa
Major, or the Great Bear." — Guide to the First and Second Egyptian
Rooms. S, Birch. London, 1874.

398 SILSILIS AND EDFU.

tamus crowned with the disk and plumes, we had met with
this Goddess before. She is not uncommon as an amulet ;
and the Writer had already sketched her at Philae, where she
occupies a prominent place in the facade of the Mammisi,
But the grotesque elegance of her attire at Silsilis is, I imagine,
quite unique.

The interest of the western bank centres in its sculptures
and inscriptions ; the interest of the eastern bank, in its
quarries. We rowed over to a point nearly opposite the
shrines of the Ramessides, and, climbing a steep verge of debris,
came to the mouth of a narrow cutting between walls of solid
rock, from forty to fifty feet in height. These walls are
smooth, clean-cut, and faultlessly perpendicular. The colour
of the sandstone is rich amber. The passage is about ten feet
in width and perhaps four hundred in length. Seen at a little
after mid-day, with one side in shadow, the other in sunlight,
and a narrow ribbon of blue sky overhead, it is like nothing
else in the world ; unless, perhaps, the entrance to Petra.

Following this passage, we came presently to an immense
area, at least as large as Belgrave Square ; beyond which,
separated by a thin partition of rock, opened a second and
somewhat smaller area. On the walls of these huge amphi-
theatres, the chisel-marks and wedge-holes were as fresh as if
the last blocks had been taken hence but yesterday ; yet it
is some 2000 years since the place last rang to the blows of
the mallet, and echoed back the voices of the workmen. From
the days of the Theban Pharaohs to the days of the Ptolemies
and Caesars, those echoes can never have been silent. The
Temples of Karnak and Luxor, of Gournah, of Medinet Habu,
of Esneh and Edfu and Hermonthis, all came from here, and
from the quarries on the opposite side of the river.^

Returning, we climbed long hills of chips ; looked down
into valleys of debris ; and came back at last to the river-side
by way of an ancient inclined plane, along which the blocks
were slid down to the transport boats below. But the most

1 For a highly interesting account of the rock-cut inscriptions, graffiti,
and quarry-marks at Silsilis, in the desert between Assuan and Philas, and
in the valley called Soba Rigolah, see Mr. W. M. F. Petrie's recent
volume entitled A Season's Work in Egypt ^ 1877.

SILSILIS AND EDFU. 399

wonderful thing about Silsilis is the way in which the quarrying
has been done. In all these halls and passages and amphi-
theatres, the sandstone has been sliced out smooth and straight,
like hay from a hayrick. Everywhere the blocks have been
taken out square ; and everywhere the best of the stone has
been extracted, and the worst left. Where it was fine in grain
and even in colour, it has been cut with the nicest economy.
Where it was whitish, or brownish, or traversed by veins of
violet, it has been left standing. Here and there, we saw
places where the lower part had been removed and the upper
part left projecting, like the overhanging storeys of our old
mediaeval timber houses. Compared with this puissant and
perfect quarrying, our rough-and-ready blasting looks like the
work of savages.

Struggling hard against the wind, we left Silsilis that same
afternoon. The wrecked steamer was now more than half
under water. She had broken her back and begun filling
immediately, with all Cook's party on board. Being rowed
ashore with what necessaries they could gather together, these
unfortunates had been obliged to encamp in tents borrowed
from the Mudir of the district. Luckily for them, a couple
of homeward-bound dahabeeyahs came by next morning, and
took off as many as they could accommodate. The Duke's
steam-tug received the rest. The tents were still there, and
a gang of natives, under the superintendence of the Mudir,
were busy getting off all that could be saved from the wreck.

As evening drew on, our head-wind became a hurricane ;
and that hurricane lasted, day and night, for thirty-six hours.
All this time the Nile was driving up against the current in
great rollers, like rollers on the Cornish coast when tide and
wind set together from the west. To hear them roaring past
in the darkness of the night — to feel the Philae rocking, shiver-
ing, straining at her mooring-ropes, and bumping perpetually
against the bank, was far from pleasant. By day, the scene
was extraordinary. There were no clouds ; but the air was
thick with sand, through which the sun glimmered feebly.
Some palms, looking grey and ghost-like on the bank above,
bent as if they must break before the blast. The Nile was
yeasty, and flecked with brown foam, large lumps of which

400 SILSILIS AND EDFU.

■ — _ ^'

came swirling every now and then against our cabin windows.
The opposite bank was simply nowhere. Judging only by
what was visible from the deck, one would have vowed that
the dahabeeyah was moored against an open coast, with an
angry sea coming in.

The wind fell about five A.M. the second day ; when the
men at once took to their oars, and by breakfast-time brought
us to Edfu. Nothing now could be more delicious than the
weather. It was a cool, silvery, misty morning — such a morn-
ing as one never knows in Nubia, where the sun is no sooner
up than one is plunged at once into the full blaze and stress
of day. There were donkeys waiting for us on the bank, and
our way lay for about a mile through barley flats and cotton
plantations. The country looked rich ; the people smiling and
well-conditioned. We met a troop of them going down to the
dahabeeyah with sheep, pigeons, poultry, and a young ox for
sale. Crossing a back-water bridged by a few rickety palm-
trunks, we now approached the village, which is perched, as
usual, on the mounds of the ancient city. Meanwhile the
great pylons — seeming to grow larger every moment — rose,
creamy in light, against a soft blue sky.

Riding through lanes of huts, we came presently to an
open space and a long flight of roughly-built steps in front of
the Temple. At the top of these steps we were standing on
the level of the modern village. At the bottom we saw the
massive pavement that marked the level of the ancient city.
From that level rose the pylons which even from afar off had
looked so large. We now found that those stupendous towers
not only soared to a height of about seventy-five feet above
our heads, but plunged down to a depth of at least forty more
beneath our feet.

Ten years ago, nothing was visible of the great Temple of
Edfu save the tops of these pylons. The rest of the building
was as much lost to sight as if the earth had opened and
swallowed it. Its courtyards were choked with foul debris.
Its sculptured chambers were buried under forty feet of soil.
Its terraced roof was a maze of closely-packed huts, swarming
with human beings, poultry, dogs, kine, asses, and vermin.
Thanks to the indefatigable energy of Mariette, these Augasan

SILSILIS AND EDFU. 401

stables were cleansed some thirty years ago. Writing himself
of this tremendous task, he says : — " I caused to be demolished
the sixty-four houses which encumbered the roof, as well as
twenty-eight more which approached too near the outer wall
of the Temple. When the whole shall be isolated from its
present surroundings by a massive wall, the work of restoration
at Edfu will be accomplished."^

That wall has not yet been built ; but the encroaching
mound has been cut clean away all round the building, now
standing free in a deep open space, the sides of which are in
some places as perpendicular as the quarried cliffs of Silsilis.
In the midst of this pit, like a risen God issuing from the
grave, the huge building stands before us in the sunshine, erect
and perfect. The effect at first sight is overwhelming.

Through the great doorway, fifty feet in height, we catch
glimpses of a grand courtyard, and of a vista of doorways, one
behind another. Going slowly down, we see farther into those
dark and distant halls at every step. At the same time the
pylons, covered with gigantic sculptures, tower higher and
higher, and seem to shut out the sky. The custode — a pigmy
of six foot two, in semi-European dress — looks up grinning,
expectant of backshish. For there is actually a custode here,
and, which is more to the purpose, a good strong gate, through
which neither pilfering visitors nor pilfering Arabs can pass
unnoticed.

Who enters that gate crosses the threshold of the past, and
leaves two thousand years behind him. In these vast courts
and storied halls all is unchanged. Every pavement, every
column, every stair, is in its place. The roof, but for a {q\v
roofing-stones missing just over the sanctuary, is not only
uninjured, but in good repair. The hieroglyphic inscriptions
are as sharp and legible as the day they were cut. If here
and there a capital, or the face of a human-headed deity, has
been mutilated, these are blemishes which at first one scarcely
observes, and which in no wise mar the wonderful effect of the
whole. We cross that great courtyard in the full blaze of the
morning sunlight. In the colonnades on either side there is

1 Letter of M. Mariette to V'*- E. DE RouGE : Revue Archeologique^
vol. ii. p. 2)Zt i860.

402 SILSILIS AND EDFU.

shade, and in the pillared portico beyond, a darkness as of
night ; save where a patch of deep blue sky burns through a
square opening in the roof, and' is matched by a corresponding
patch of blinding light on the pavement below. Hence we
pass on through a hall of columns, two transverse corridors,
a side chapel, a series of pitch-dark side chambers, and a
sanctuary. Outside all these, surrounding the actual Temple
on three sides, runs an external corridor open to the sky, and
bounded by a superb wall full forty feet in height. When I have
said that the entrance-front, with its twin pylons and central
doorway, measures 250 feet in width by 125 feet in height;
that the first courtyard measures more than 160 feet in length
by 140 in width ; that the entire length of the building is 450
feet, and that it covers an area of 80,000 square feet, I have
stated facts of a kind which convey no more than a general
idea of largeness to the ordinary reader. Of the harmony
of the proportions, of the amazing size and strength of the
individual parts, of the perfect workmanship, of the fine grain
and creamy amber of the stone, no description can do more
than suggest an indefinite notion.

Edfu and Denderah may almost be called twin Temples.
They belong to the same period. They are built very nearly
after the same plan.^ They are even allied in a religious sense ;
for the myths of Horus^ and Hathor^ are interdependent ; the
one being the complement of the other. Thus in the inscrip-
tions of Edfu we find perpetual allusion to the cultus of
Denderah, and vice versa. Both Edfu and Denderah are rich
in inscriptions ; but as the extent of wall-space is greater at

1 Edfu is the elder Temple ; Denderah the copy. Where the architect
of Denderah has departed from his model, it has invariably been for the
worse.

2 Horus : — " Dieu adore dans plusieurs nomes de la basse Egypte.
Le personnage d'Horus se rattache sous des noms differents, k deux
generations divines. Sous le nom de Haroeris il est ne de Seb et Nout,
et par consequent frfere d'Osiris, dont il est le fils sous un autre nom. . . .
Horus, armd d'un dard avec lequel il transperce les ennemis d'Osiris, est
appel^ Horus le Justicier." — Diet. Arch. P. Pierret, article "-Horus."

3 Hathor: — " Elle est, conune Neith, Maut, et Nout, la personnifica-
tion de I'espace dans lequel se meut le soleil, dont Horns symbolise le
lever: aussi son nom, Hat-hor, signifie-t-il litteralement, rhabtlation
d'Horus:'— Ibid, article ''Hathor:*

SILSILIS AND EDFU. 403

Edfu, so is the literary wealth of this Temple greater than the
literary wealth of Denderah. It also seemed to me that the
surface was more closely filled in at Edfu than at Denderah.
Every wall, every ceiling, every pillar, every architrave, every
passage and side-chamber however dark, every staircase, every
doorway, the outer wall of the Temple, the inner side of the
great wall of circuit, the huge pylons from top to bottom, are
not only covered, but crowded, with figures and hieroglyphs.
Among these we find no enormous battle-subjects as at Abou
Simbel — no heroic recitals, like the poem of Pentaur. Those
went out with the Pharaohs, and were succeeded by tableaux
of religious rites and dialogues of gods and kings. Such are
the stock subjects of Ptolemaic edifices. They abound at
Denderah and Esneh, as well as at Edfu. But at Edfu there
are more inscriptions of a miscellaneous character than in any
Temple of Egypt ; and it is precisely this secular information
which is so priceless. Here are geographical lists of Nubian
and Egyptian nomes, with their principal cities, their products,
and their tutelary gods ; lists of tributary provinces and
princes ; lists of temples, and of the lands pertaining there-
unto ; lists of canals, of ports, of lakes ; kalendars of feasts
and fasts ; astronomical tables ; genealogies and chronicles of
the gods ; lists of the priests and priestesses of both Edfu and
Denderah, with their names ; lists also of singers and assistant
functionaries ; lists of offerings, hymns, invocations ; and such
a profusion of religious legends as make of the walls of Edfu
alone a complete text-book of Egyptian mythology.^

No great collection of these inscriptions, like the "Denderah"
of Mariette, has yet been published ; but every now and then
some enterprising Egyptologist, such as M. Naville or M.
Jacques de Rouge, plunges for awhile into the depths of the
Edfu mine and brings back as much precious ore as he can
carry. Some most singular and interesting details have thus
been brought to light. One inscription, for instance, records
exactly in what month, and on what day and at what hour.
Isis gave birth to Horus. Another tells all about the sacred
boats. We know now that Edfu possessed at least two ; and

^ Rapport sur une Mission en Egypte. VicOMTE E. De Roug£ See
Revue Arch. Nouvelle Serie, vol. x. p. 63

404 SI LSI LIS AND EDFU.

that one was called Hor-Hat, or The First Horus, and the
other Aa-Mafek, or Great of Turquoise. These boats, it would
appear, were not merely for carrying in procession, but for
actual use upon the water. Another text — one of the most
curious — informs us that Hathor of Denderah paid an annual
visit to Horus (or Hor-Hat) of Edfu, and spent some days
with him in his Temple. The whole ceremonial of this
fantastic trip is given in detail. The Goddess travelled in
her boat called Neb-Mer-t, or Lady of the Lake. Horus, like
a polite host, went out in his boat Hor-Hat, to meet her.
The two deities with their attendants then formed one proces-
sion, and so came to Edfu, where the Goddess was entertained
with a succession of festivals.^

One would like to know whether Horus duly returned all
these visits ; and if the Gods, like modern Emperors, had a gay
time among themselves.

Other questions inevitably suggest themselves, sometimes
painfully, sometimes ludicrously, as one paces chamber after
chamber, corridor after corridor, sculptured all over with
strange forms and stranger legends. What about these Gods
whose genealogies are so intricate ; whose mutual relations
are so complicated ; who wedded and became parents ; who
exchanged visits, and who even travelled " at times to distant
countries ? What about those who served them in the
Temples ; who robed and unrobed them ; who celebrated
their birthdays, and paraded them in stately processions, and
consumed the lives of millions in erecting these mountains of
masonry and sculpture to their honour ? We know now with
what elaborate rites the Gods were adored ; what jewels they
wore ; what hymns were sung in their praise. We know from
what a subtle and philosophical core of solar myths their
curious personal adventures were evolved. We may also be
quite sure that the hidden meaning of these legends was
almost wholly lost sight of in the later days of the religion,'

1 Textes Geographiques du Temple d^Edfou, by M. J. De RoUGlfi.
R/vue Arch. vol. xii. p. 209.

2 See Professor Revillout's Seconde Mdmoire sur les Blemmyes, 1888,
for an account of how the statues of Isis and other deities were taken once
a year from the Temples of Philas for a trip into Ethiopia.

8 See Appendix III, Religious Belief of the Ancient Egyptians, ,_

SJLSILIS AND EDFU. 405

and that the Gods were accepted for what they seemed to
be, and not for what they symbolised. What, then, of their
worshippers ? Did they really believe all these things, or
were any among them tormented with doubts of the Gods ?
Were there sceptics in those days, who wondered how two
hierogrammates could look each other in the face without
laughing ?

The custode told us that there were 242 steps to the
top of each tower of the propylon. We counted 224, and
dispensed willingly with the remainder. It was a long pull ;
but had the steps been four times as many, the sight from the
top would have been worth the climb. The chambers in the
pylons are on a grand scale, with wide bevelled windows like
the mouths of monster letter-boxes, placed at regular intervals
all the way up. Through these windows the great flagstafifs
and pennons were regulated from within. The two pylons
communicate by a terrace over the central doorway. The
parapet of this terrace and the parapets of the pylons above,
are plentifully scrawled with names, many of which were left
there by the French soldiers of 1799.

The cornices of these two magnificent towers are un-
fortunately gone ; but the total height without them is 1 2 5
feet. From the top, as from the minaret of the great mosque
at Damascus, one looks down into the heart of the town.
Hundreds of mud-huts thatched with palm-leaves, hundreds of
little courtyards, lie mapped out beneath one's feet ; and as
the Fellah lives in his yard by day, using his hut merely as
a sleeping place at night, one looks down, like the Diable
Boiteux, upon the domestic doings of a roofless world. We
see people moving to and fro, unconscious of strange eyes
watching them from above — men lounging, smoking, sleeping
in shady corners — children playing — infants crawling on all
fours — women cooking at clay ovens in the open air — cows
and sheep feeding — poultry scratching and pecking — dogs
basking in the sun. The huts look more like the lairs of
prairie-dogs than the dwellings of human beings. The little
mosque with its one dome and stunted minaret, so small, so
far below, looks like a clay toy. Beyond the village, which
reaches far and wide, lie barley fields, and cotton patches, and

4o6 S/LSIUS AND EDFU.

palm -groves, bounded on one side by the river, and on the
other by the desert. A broad road, dotted over with moving
specks of men and cattle, cleaves its way straight through the
cultivated land and out across the sandy plain beyond. We
can trace its course for miles where it is only a trodden track-
in the desert. It goes, they tell us, direct to Cairo. On the
opposite bank glares a hideous white sugar -factory, and,
bowered in greenery, a country villa of the Khedive. The
broad Nile flows between. The sweet Theban hills gleam
through a pearly haze on the horizon.

All at once, a fitful breeze springs up, blowing in little
gusts and swirling the dust in circles round our feet. At the
same moment, like a beautiful spectre, there rises from the
desert close by an undulating semi-transparent stalk of yellow
sand, which grows higher every moment, and begins moving
northward across the plain. Almost at the same instant,
another appears a long way off towards the south, and a third
comes gliding mysteriously along the opposite bank. While
we are watching the third, the first begins throwing off a
wonderful kind of plume, which follows it, waving and melting
in the air. And now the stranger from the south comes up
at a smooth, tremendous pace, towering at least 500 feet above
the desert, till, meeting some cross-current, it is snapped
suddenly in twain. The lower half instantly collapses ; the
upper, after hanging suspended for a moment, spreads and
floats slowly, like a cloud. In the meanwhile, other and
smaller columns form here and there — stalk a little way —
waver — disperse — form again — and again drop away in dust.
Then the breeze falls, and puts an abrupt end to this extra-
ordinary spectacle. In less than two minutes there is not a
sand-column left. As they came, they vanish — suddenly.

Such is the landscape that frames the Temple ; and the
Temple, after all, is the sight that one comes up here to see.
There it lies far below our feet, the courtyard with its almost
perfect pavement ; the flat roof compact of gigantic monoliths ;
the wall of circuit with its panoramic sculptures ; the portico,
with its screen and pillars- distinct in brilliant light against
inner depths of dark ; each pillar a shaft of ivory, each square
of dark a block of ebony. So perfect, so solid, so splendid is

SILSILIS AND EDFU. 407

the whole structure ; so simple in unity of plan ; so complex
in ornament ; so majestic in completeness, that one feels as
if it solved the whole problem of religious architecture.

Take it for what it is — a Ptolemaic structure preserved in
all its integrity of strength and finish — it is certainly the finest
extant Temple in Egypt. It brings before us, with even more
completeness than Denderah, the purposes of its various parts,
and the kind of ceremonial for which it was designed. Every
corridor and chamber tells its own story. Even the names of
the different chambers are graven upon them in such wise
that nothing ^ would be easier than to reconstruct the ground-
plan of the whole building in hieroglyphic nomenclature.
That neither the Ptolemaic building nor the Ptolemaic mythus
can be accepted as strictly representative of either pure Egyptian
art or pure Egyptian thought, must of course be conceded.
Both are modified by Greek influences, and have so far
departed from the Pharaonic model. But then we have no
equally perfect specimen of the Pharaonic model. The
Ramesseum is but a grand fragment. Karnak and Medinet
Habu are aggregates of many Temples and many styles.
Abydos is still half-buried. Amid so much that is fragmentary;
amid so much that is ruined, the one absolutely perfect structure
— Ptolemaic though it be — is of incalculable interest, and
equally incalculable value.

While we are dreaming over these things, trying to fancy
how it all looked when the sacred flotilla came sweeping up
the river yonder and the procession of Hor-Hat issued forth
to meet the Goddess-guest — while we are haif-expecting to see
the whole brilliant concourse pour out, priests in their robes
of panther-skin, priestesses with the tinkling sistrum, singers
and harpists, and bearers of gifts and emblems, and high
functionaries rearing aloft the sacred boat of the God — in this
moment a turbaned Mueddin comes out upon the rickety
wooden gallery of the little minaret below, and intones the
call to mid-day prayer. That plaintive cry has hardly died
away before we see men here and there among the huts turning

^ Not only the names of the chambers, but their dimensions in cubits
and subdivisions of cubits are given. See Itineraire de la Haute Egypte.
A. Mariette Bey. 1872, p. 241.

4o8

SI LSI LIS AND EDFU.

towards the east, and assuming the first postures of devotion.
The women go on cooking and nursing their babies. I have
seen Moslem women at prayer in the mosques of Constantinople,
but never in Egypt.

Meanwhile, some children catch sight of us, and, notwith-
standing that we are one hundred and twenty-five feet above
their heads, burst into a frantic chorus of " Backshish !"

And now, with a last long look at the Temple and the
wide landscape beyond, we come down again, and go to see
a dismal little Mammesi three-parts buried among a wilderness
of mounds close by. These mounds, which consist almost
entirely of crude-brick debris with imbedded fragments of stone
and pottery, are built up like coral-reefs, and represent the
dwellings of some sixty generations. When they are cut
straight through, as here round about the Great Temple, the
substance of them looks like rich plum-cake.

CHAPTER XXI.
THEBES.

Vv E had so long been the sport of destiny, that we hardly
knew what to make of our good fortune when two days of
sweet south wind carried us from Edfu to Luxor. We came
back to find the old mooring-place alive with dahabeeyahs,
and gay with English and American colours. These two flags
well-nigh divide the river. In every twenty -five boats, one
may fairly calculate upon an average of twelve English, nine
American, two German, one Belgian, and one French. Of all
these, our American cousins, ever helpful, ever cordial, are
pleasantest to meet. Their flag stands to me for a host of
brave and generous and kindly association.?. It brings back
memories of many lands and many faces. It calls up echoes
of friendly voices, some far distant ; some, alas ! silent. Where-
fore— be it on the Nile, or the Thames, or the high seas, or
among Syrian camping-grounds, or drooping listlessly from
the balconies of gloomy diplomatic haunts in continental cities
— my heart warms to the stars and stripes whenever I see
them.

Our arrival brought all the dealers of Luxor to the surface.
They waylaid and followed us wherever we went ; while some
of the better sort — grave men in long black robes and ample
turbans — installed themselves on our lower deck, and lived
there for a fortnight. Go upstairs when one would, whether
before breakfast in the morning, or after dinner in the evening,
there we always found them, patient, imperturbable, ready
to rise up, and salaam, and produce from some hidden pocket

4IO THEBES.

a purseful of scarabs or a bundle of funerary statuettes. Some
of these gentlemen were Arabs, some Copts — all polite,
plausible, and mendacious.

Where Copt and Arab drive the same doubtful trade, it is
not easy to define the shades of difference in their dealings.
As workmen, the Copts are perhaps the most artistic. As
salesmen, the Arabs are perhaps the less dishonest. Both sell
more forgeries than genuine antiquities. Be the demand what
it may, they are prepared to meet it. Thothmes is not too
heavy, nor Cleopatra too light, for them. Their carvings in
old sycamore wood, their porcelain statuettes, their hieroglyphed
limestone tablets, are executed with a skill that almost defies
detection. As for genuine scarabs of the highest antiquity,
they are turned out by the gross every season. Engraved,
glazed, and administered to the turkeys in the form of boluses,
they acquire by the simple process of digestion a degree of
venerableness that is really charming.

Side by side with the work of production goes on the
work of excavation. The professed diggers colonise the
western bank. They live rent-free among the tombs ; drive
donkeys or work shadufs by day, and spend their nights
searching for treasure. Some hundreds of families live in this
grim way, spoiling the dead-and-gone Egyptians for a liveli-
hood.

Forgers, diggers, and dealers play, meanwhile, into one
another's hands, and drive a roaring trade. Your dahabeeyah,
as I have just shown, is beset from the moment you moor till
the moment you pole off again from shore. The boy who
drives your donkey, the guide who pilots you among the
tombs, the half-naked Fellah who flings down his hoe as you
pass, and runs beside you for a mile across the plain, have
one and all an " anteekah " to dispose of The turbaned
official who comes, attended by his secretary and pipe-bearer,
to pay you a visit of ceremony, warns you against imposition,
and hints at genuine treasures to which he alone possesses the
key. The gentlemanly native who sits next to you at dinner
has a wonderful scarab in his pocket. In short, every man,
woman, and child about the place is bent on selling a bargain ;
and the bargain, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, is

THEBES. 411

valuable in so far as it represents the industry of Luxor — but
no farther. A good thing, of course, is to be had occasionally ;
but the good thing never comes to the surface as long as a
market can be found for the bad one. It is only when the
dealer finds he has to do with an experienced customer, that
he produces the best he has.

Flourishing as it is, the trade of Luxor labours, however,
under some uncomfortable restrictions. Private excavation
being prohibited, the digger lives in dread of being found out
by the Governor. The forger, who has nothing to fear from
the Governor, lives in dread of being found out by the tourist.
As for the dealer, whether he sells an antique or an imitation,
he is equally liable to punishment. In the one case he commits
an offence against the state ; and in the other, he obtains
money under false pretences. Meanwhile, the Governor deals
out such even-handed justice as he can, and does his best to
enforce the law on both sides of the river.

By a curious accident, L. and the Writer once actually
penetrated into a forger's workshop. Not knowing that it had
been abolished, we went to a certain house in which a certain
Consulate had once upon a time been located, and there knocked
for admission. An old deaf Fellaha opened the door, and after
some hesitation showed us into a large unfurnished room with
three windows. In each window there stood a workman's
bench strewn with scarabs, amulets, and funerary statuettes in
every stage of progress. We examined these specimens with
no little curiosity. Some were of wood ; some were of lime-
stone ; some were partly coloured. The colours and brushes
were there ; to say nothing of files, gravers, and little pointed
tools like gimlets. A magnifying glass of the kind used by
engravers lay in one of the window-recesses. We also observed
a small grindstone screwed to one of the benches and worked
by a treadle ; while a massive fragment of mummy-case in a
corner behind the door showed whence came the old sycamore
wood for the wooden specimens. That three skilled workmen
furnished with European tools had been busy in this room
shortly before we were shown into it, was perfectly clear. We
concluded that they had just gone away to breakfast.

Meanwhile we waited, expecting to be ushered into the

412 THEBES.

presence of the Consul. In about ten minutes, however,
breathless with hurrying, arrived a well-dressed Arab whom we
had never seen before. Distracted between his Oriental polite-
ness and his desire to get rid of us, he bowed us out precipi-
tately, explaining that the house had changed owners, and that
the Power in question had ceased to be represented at Luxor.
We heard him rating the old woman savagely, as soon as the
door had closed behind us. I met that well-dressed Arab a day
or two after, near the Governor's house ; and he immediately
vanished round the nearest corner.

The Boulak authorities keep a small gang of trained ex-
cavators always at work in the Necropolis of Thebes. These
men are superintended by the Governor, and every mummy-
case discovered is forwarded to Boulak unopened. Thanks to
the courtesy of the Governor, we had the good fortune to be
present one morning at the opening of a tomb. He sent to
summon us, just as we were going to breakfast. With what
alacrity we manned the felucca, and how we ate our bread
and butter half in the boat and half on donkey-back, may
easily be imagined. How well I remember that early morning
ride across the western plain of Thebes — the young barley
rippling for miles in the sun ; the little water-channel running
beside the path ; the white butterflies circling in couples ; the
wayside grave with its tiny dome and prayer-mat, its well and
!jroken kulleh, inviting the passer-by to drink and pray ; the
wild vine that trailed along the wall ; the vivid violet of the
vetches that blossomed unbidden in the barley. We had the
mounds and pylons of Medinet Habu to the left — the ruins of
the Ramesseum to the right — the Colossi of the Plain and the
rosy western mountains before us all the way. How the great
statues glistened in the morning light ! How they towered up
against the soft blue sky ! Battered and featureless, they sat
in the old patient attitude, looking as if they mourned the
vanished springs.

We found the new tomb a few hundred yards in the rear of
the Ramesseum. The diggers were in the pit ; the Governor and
a few Arabs were looking on. The vault was lined with brick-
work above, and cut square in the living rock below. We
were just in time ; for already, through the sand and rubble

■liiiiiiiiiii"^^

414 THEBES.

with which the grave had been filled in, there appeared an
outline of something buried. The men, throwing spades and
picks aside, now began scraping up the dust with their hands,
and a mummy-case came gradually to light. It was shaped to
represent a body lying at length with the hands crossed upon
the breast. Both hands and face were carved in high relief.
The ground-colour of the sarcophagus was white ;^ the surface
covered with hieroglyphed legends and somewhat coarsely
painted figures of the four lesser Gods of the Dead. The face,
like the hands, was coloured a brownish yellow and highly
varnished. But for a little dimness of the gaudy hues, and a
.little flaking off of the surface here and there, the thing was as
perfect as when it was placed in the ground. A small wooden
box roughly put together lay at the feet of the mummy. This
was taken out first, and handed to the Governor, who put it
aside without opening it. The mummy-case was then raised
upright, hoisted to the brink of the pit, and laid upon the
ground.

It gave one a kind of shock to see it first of all lying just
as it had been left by the mourners ; then hauled out by rude
hands, to be searched, unrolled, perhaps broken up as unworthy
to occupy a corner in the Boulak collection. Once they are
lodged and catalogued in a museum, one comes to look upon
these things as " specimens," and forgets that they once were
living beings like ourselves. But this poor mummy looked
startlingly human and pathetic lying at the bottom of its grave
in the morning sunlight.

After the sarcophagus had been lifted out, a small blue
porcelain cup, a ball of the same material, and another little
object shaped like a cherry, were found in the debris. The
last was hollow, and contained something that rattled when
shaken. The mummy, the wooden box, and these porcelain

1 This was, no doubt, an interment of the period of the XXlIIrd or
XXIVth Dynasty, the style of which is thus described by Mariette :
" SuccMent les caisses k fond blanc. Autour de celles-gi court une Idgende
en hieroglyphes de toutes couleurs. Le devant du couvercle est divise
horizontalement en tableaux ou alternent les representations et les textes
traces en hieroglyphes verdatres. La momie elle-meme est hermetiquement
enfermee dans un cartonnage cousu par derriere et peint de couleurs tran-
chantes." — Notice des Mo?iwnents a Boulak, t£). 46. Paris, 1872. ^

THEBES. 415

toys, were then removed to a stable close by ; and the ex-
cavators, having laid bare what looked like the mouth of a
bricked-up tunnel in the side of the tomb, fell to work again
immediately. A second vault — perhaps a chain of vaults — it
was thought would now be discovered.

VVe went away, meanwhile, for a few hours, and saw some
of the famous painted tombs in that part of the mountain-side
just above, which goes by the name of Sheykh Abd-el-Koorneh.

It was a hot climb ; the sun blazing over-head ; the cliffs
reflecting light and heat ; the white debris glaring under-foot.
Some of the tombs up here are excavated in terraces, and look
from a distance like rows of pigeon holes ; others are pierced
in solitary ledges of rock ; many are difficult of access ; all
are intolerably hot and oppressive. They were numbered half
a century ago by the late Sir Gardner Wilkinson, and the
numbers arc there still. We went that morning into 14, 16,
17, and 35.

As a child " The Manners and Ctistoms of the Ancient
Egyptians'' had shared my affections with '■^ The Arabian
Nights." I had read every line of the old six-volume edition
over and over again. I knew every one of the six hundred
illustrations by heart. Now I suddenly found myself in the
midst of old and half-forgotten friends. Every subject on
these wonderful walls was already familiar to me. Only the
framework, only the colouring, only the sand under-foot, only
the mountain slope outside, were new and strange. It seemed
to me that I had met all these kindly brown people years and
years ago — perhaps in some previous stage of existence ; that
I had walked with them in their gardens ; listened to the
music of their lutes and tambourines ; pledged them at their
feasts. Here is the funeral procession that I know so well ;
and the trial scene after death, where the mummy stands
upright in the presence of Osiris, and sees his heart weighed in
the balance. Here is that well-remembered old fowler crouch-
ing in the rushes with his basket of decoys. One withered
hand is lifted to his mouth ; his lips frame the call ; his thin
hair blows in the breeze. I see now that he has placed himself
to the leeward of the game ; but that subtlety escaped me in
the reading days of my youth. Yonder I recognise a sculptor's

4i6 THEBES.

studio into which I frequently peeped at that time. His men
are at work as actively as ever ; but I marvel that they have
not yet finished polishing the surface of that red-granite
colossus. This patient angler, still waiting for a bite, is another
old acquaintance ; and yonder, I declare, is that evening party
at which I was so often an imaginary guest ! Is the feast not
yet over ? Has that late comer whom we saw hurrying along
just now in a neighbouring corridor not yet arrived ? Will
the musicians never play to the end of their concerto ? Are
those ladies still so deeply interested in the patterns of one
another's ear-rings ? It seems to me that the world has been
standing still in here for these last five-and-thirty years.

Did I say five-and-thirty ? Ah me ! I think we must
multiply it by ten, and then by ten again, ere we come to the
right figure. These people lived in the time of the Thothmes
and the Amenhoteps — a time upon which Rameses the Great
looked back as we look back to the days of the Tudors and
the Stuarts.

From the tombs above, we went back to the excavations
below. The bricked-up opening had led, as the diggers ex-
pected, into a second vault ; and another mummy-case, half-
crushed by a fall of debris, had just been taken out. A third
was found later in the afternoon. Curiously enough, they were
all three mummies of women.

The Governor was taking his luncheon with the first
mummy in the recesses of the stable, which had been a fine
tomb once, but reeked now with manure. He sat on a rug,
cross-legged, with a bowl of sour milk before him and a tray
of most uninviting little cakes. He invited me to a seat on
his rug, handed me his own spoon, and did the honours of the
stable as pleasantly as if it had been a palace.

I asked him why the excavators, instead of working among
these second-class graves, were not set to search for the tombs
of the Kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty, supposed to be waiting
discovery in a certain valley called the Valley of the West.
He shook his head. The way to the Valley of the West, he
said, was long and difficult. Men working there must encamp
upon the spot ; and merely to supply them with water would
be no easy matter. He was allowed, in fact, only a sum suffi-

THEBES. 417

cient for the wages of fifty excavators ; and to attack the
Valley of the West with less than two hundred would be useless.

We had luncheon that morning, I remember, with the M,
B.'s in the second hall of the Ramesseum. It was but one
occasion among many ; for the Writer was constantly at work
on that side of the river, and we had luncheon in one or other
of the western Temples every day. Yet that particular meeting
stands out in my memory apart from the rest. I see the joyous
party gathered together in the shade of the great columns —
the Persian rugs spread on the uneven ground — the dragoman
in his picturesque dress going to and fro — the brown and
tattered Arabs, squatting a little way off, silent and hungry-
eyed, each with his string of forged scarabs, his imitation gods,
or his bits of mummy-case and painted cartonnage for sale —
the glowing peeps of landscape framed in here and there
through vistas of columns — the emblazoned architraves laid
along from capital to capital overhead, each block sculptured
with enormous cartouches yet brilliant with vermilion and
ultramarine — the patient donkeys munching all together at a
little heap of vetches in one corner — the intense depths of
cloudless blue above. Of all Theban ruins, the Ramesseum is
the most cheerful. Drenched in sunshine, the warm limestone
of which it is built seems to have mellowed and turned golden
with time. No walls enclose it. No towering pylons over-
shadow it. It stands high, and the air circulates freely among
those simple and beautiful columns. There are not many
Egyptian ruins in which one can talk and be merry ; but in
the Ramesseum one may thoroughly enjoy the passing hour.

Whether Rameses the Great was ever actually buried in
this place is a problem which future discoveries may possibly
solve ; but that the Ramesseum and the tomb of Osymandias
were one and the same building is a point upon which I never
entertained a moment's doubt. Spending day after day among
these ruins ; sketching now here, now there ; going over the
ground bit by bit, and comparing every detail, I came at last
to wonder how an identity so obvious could ever have been
doubted. Diodorus was of course inaccurate ; but then one as
little looks for accuracy in Diodorus as in Homer. Compared
with some of his topographical descriptions, the account he

2 E

4i8 THEBES.

gives of the Ramesseum is a marvel of exactness. He describes ^
a building approached by two vast courtyards ; a hall of pillars
opening by way of three entrances from the second courtyard ;
a succession of chambers, including a sacred library ; ceilings
of azure " bespangled with stars " ; walls covered with sculptures
representing the deeds and triumphs of the king whom he calls
Osymandias,- amongst which are particularly noticed the assault
of a fortress " environed by a river," a procession of captives
without hands, and a series of all the Gods of Egypt, to whom
the King was represented in the act of making offerings ; finally,
against the entrance to the second courtyard, three statues of
the King, one of which, being of Syenite granite and made " in
a sitting posture," is stated to be not only " the greatest in all
Egypt," but admirable above all others " for its workmanship,
and the excellence of the stone."

Bearing in mind that what is left of the Ramesseum is, as
it were, only the backbone of the entire structure, one can still
walk from end to end of the building, and still recognise every
feature of this description. We turn our backs on the wrecked
towers of the first propylon ; crossing what was once the first
courtyard, we leave to the left the fallen colossus ; we enter the
second courtyard, and see before us the three entrances to the
hall of pillars, and the remains of two other statues ; we walk
up the central avenue of the great hall, and see above our heads
architraves studded with yellow stars upon a ground colour so
luminously blue that it almost matches the sky ; thence, passing
through a chamber lined with sculptures, we come to the library,
upon the door-jambs of which Champollion found the figures of
Thoth and Saf, the Lord of Letters and the Lady of the Sacred
Books ; ^ finally, among such fragments of sculptured decoration

1 Diodorus, Biblioth. Hist., Bk. i. chap. iv. The fault of inaccuracy
ought, however, to be charged to Hecatasus, who was the authority followed
here by Diodorus.

2 Possibly the Smendes of Manetho, and the Ba-en-Ded whose car-
touche is found by Brugsch on a sarcophagus in the museum at Vienna ;
see Hist. cTEgypte, chap. x. p. 213, ed. 1859. Another claimant to this
identification is found in a King named Se-Mentu, whose cartouches were
found by Mariette on some small gold tablets at Tanis.

3 Letter XIV. p. 235, Lettres cPEgypte; Paris, 1868. See also chap,
xviii. of the present work ; p. 349.

420 THEBES.

as yet remain, we find the King making offerings to a hiero-
glyphed list of Gods as well as to his deified ancestors ; we see
the train of captives, and the piles of severed hands ; ^ and we
discover an immense battle-piece, which is in fact a replica of
the famous battle-piece at Abou Simbel. This subject, like its
Nubian prototype, yet preserves some of its colour. The
enemy are shown to be fair-skinned and light-haired, and wear
the same Syrian robes ; and the river, more green than that at
Abou Simbel, is painted in zigzags in the same manner. The
King, alone in his chariot, sends arrow after arrow against the
flying foe. They leap into the river, and swim for their lives.
Some are drowned ; some cross in safety, and are helped out
by their friends on the opposite bank. A red-haired chief,
thus rescued, is suspended head-downwards by his soldiers, in
order to let the water that he has swallowed run out of his
mouth. The river is once more the Orontes ; the city is once
more Kadesh ; the king is once more Rameses II; and the
incidents are again the incidents of the poem of Pentaur.

The one wholly unmistakable point in the narrative is,
however, the colossal statue of Syenite, " the largest in Egypt." ^
The siege and the river, the troops of captives are to be found

1 See ChampoUion, Letter XIV, footnote, p. 418.

2 The sitting colossus of the Ramesseum was certainly the largest
perfect statue in Egypt when Diodorus visited the Valley of the Nile, for
the great standing colossus of Tanis had long before his time been cut up
by Sheshonk III for building purposes ; but that the Tanite colossus much
exceeded the colossus of the Ramesseum in height and bulk is placed beyond
doubt by the scale of the fragments discovered by Mr. Petrie in the course
of his excavations in 1884. According to his very cautious calculations,
the figure alone of the Tanite colossus was 900 inches, or 75 feet high ;
or somewhere between 70 and 80 feet. " To this," says Mr. Petrie, " we
must add the height of the crown, which would proportionately be some
14^- feet. To this again must be added the base of the figure, which
was thinner than the usual scale, being only 27 inches thick. Thus the
whole block appears to have been about 11 00 inches, or say 92 feet high.
This was, so far as is known, the largest statue ever executed." The
weight of the figure is calculated by Mr. Petrie at about 900 tons ; i.e. 100
tons more than the colossus of the Ramesseum. That it stood upon a
suitable pedestal cannot be doubted ; and with the pedestal, which can
scarcely have been less than 18 or 20 feet in height, the statue must have
towered some 120 feet above the level of the plain. See Tanis, part i.
chap. ii. pp. 22, 23. [Note to Second Edition.]

THEBES. 421

elsewhere ; but nowhere, save here, a colossus which answers
to that description. This statue was larger than even the twin
Colossi of the Plain. They measure eighteen feet and three
inches across the shoulders ; this measures twenty-two feet and
four inches. They sit about fifty feet high, without their
pedestals ; this one must have lifted his head some ten feet
higher still. " The measure of his foot," says Diodorus,
" exceeded seven cubits " ; the Greek cubit being a little over
eighteen inches in length. The foot of the fallen Rameses
measures nearly eleven feet in length by four feet ten inches
in breadth. This, also, is the only very large Theban colossus
sculptured in the red Syenite of Assuan.^

Ruined almost beyond recognition as it is, one never
doubts for a moment that this statue was one of the wonders
of Egyptian workmanship. It most probably repeated in
every detail the colossi of Abou Simbel ; but it surpassed
them as much in finish of carving as in perfection of material.
The stone is even more beautiful in colour than that of the
famous obelisks of Karnak ; and is so close and hard in grain,
that the scarab-cutters of Luxor are said to use splinters of it
as our engravers use diamonds, for the points of their graving
tools. The solid contents of the whole, when entire, are
calculated at 887 tons. How this astounding mass was
transported from Assuan, how it was raised, how it was over-
thrown, are problems upon which a great deal of ingenious
conjecture has been wasted. One traveller affirms that the
wedge-marks of the destroyer are distinctly visible. Another,
having carefully examined the fractured edges, declares that
the keenest eye can detect neither wedge-marks nor any other
evidences of violence. We looked for none of these signs and
tokens. We never asked ourselves how or when the ruin had
been done. It was enough that the mighty had fallen.

Inasmuch as one can clamber upon and measure these
stupendous fragments, the fallen colossus is more astonishing,
perhaps, as a wreck than it would have been as a whole.
Here, snapped across at the waist and flung helplessly back,

^ The Syenite colossus of which the British Museum possesses the
head, and which is popularly known as the Young Memnon, measured
twenty-four feet in height before it was broken up by the French.

422 THEBES.

lie a huge head and shoulders, to climb which is like climbing
a rock. Yonder, amid piles of unintelligible debris, we see a
great foot, and nearer the head, part of an enormous trunk,
together with the upper halves of two huge thighs clothed in
the usual shenti or striped tunic. The klaft or headdress is
also striped, and these stripes, in both instances, retain the
delicate yellow colour with which they were originally filled in.
To judge from the way in which this colour was applied, one
would say that the statue was tinted rather than painted. The
surface -work, wherever it remains, is as smooth and highly
finished as the cutting of the finest gem. Even the ground
of the superb cartouche, on the upper half of the arm, is
elaborately polished. Finally, in the pit which it ploughed
out in falling, lies the great pedestal, hieroglyphed with the
usual pompous titles of Rameses Mer-Amen. Diodorus, know-
ing nothing of Rameses or his style, interprets the inscription
after his own fanciful fashion : — " I am Osymandias, King of
Kings. If any would know how great I am, and where I lie,
let him excel me in any of my works."

The fragments of wall and shattered pylon that yet remain
standing at the Ramesseum face N.W. and S.W. Hence it
follows that some of the most interesting of the surface
sculpture (being cut in very low relief) is so placed with regard
to the light as to be actually invisible after midday. It was
not till the occasion of my last visit, when I came early in the
morning to make a certain sketch by a certain light, that I
succeeded in distinguishing a single figure of that celebrated
tableau,^ on the south wall of the Great Hall, in which the
Egyptians are seen to be making use of the testudo and
scaling ladder to assault a Syrian fortress. The wall sculptures
of the second hall are on a bolder scale, and can be seen at
any hour. Here Thoth writes the name of Rameses on the
egg-shaped fruit of the persea tree, and processions of shaven
priests carry on their shoulders the sacred boats of various
Gods. In the centre of each boat is a shrine supported by
winged genii, or cherubim. The veils over these shrines, the
rings through which the bearing-poles were passed, and all the

^ See woodcut No. 340 in Sir G. Wilkinson's Manners and Customs
of the Ancient Egyptians^ vol. i. ed. 1871.

THEBES. 423

appointments and ornaments of the bari^ are distinctly shown.
One seems here, indeed, to be admitted to a glimpse of those
original shrines upon which Moses — learned in the sacred lore
of the Egyptians — modelled, with but little alteration, his Ark
of the Covenant.

Next in importance to Karnak, and second in interest to
none of the Theban ruins, is the vast group of buildings known
by the collective name of Medinet Habu. To attempt to
describe these would be to undertake a task as hopeless as the
description of Karnak. Such an attempt lies, at all events,
beyond the compass of these pages, so many of which have
already been given to similar subjects. For it is of Temples
as of mountains — no two are alike, yet all sound so much alike
when described that it is scarcely possible to write about them
without becoming monotonous. In the present instance, there-
fore, I will note only a few points of special interest, referring
those who wish for fuller particulars to the elaborate account
of Medinet Habu in Murray's Handbook of Egypt.

In the second name of Medinet Habu — Medinet being the
common Arabic for city, and Habu, Aboo, or Taboo being
variously spelled — there survives almost beyond doubt the
ancient name of that famous city which the Greeks called
Thebes. It is a name for which many derivations^ have been
suggested, but upon which the learned are not yet agreed.

The ruins of Medinet Habu consist of a smaller Temple
founded by Queen Hatohepsu of the XVIIIth Dynasty, a large
and magnificent Temple entirely built by Rameses III of the
XXth Dynasty, and an extremely curious and interesting build-
ing, part palace, part fortress, which is popularly known as the
Pavilion.

The walls of this pavilion, the walls of the great forecourt
leading to the smaller Temple, and a corner of the original
wall of circuit, are crowned in the Egyptian style with shield-
shaped battlements, precisely as the Khetan and Amorite
fortresses are battlemented in the sculptured tableaux at Abou

1 Among these are Abot or abode ; meaning the abode of Amen ; 7a-
Uaboo, the mound ; Ta-Api, the head or capital, etc. etc See Recherches
sur le notn Egyptien de Thebes. Chabas : 1863; Textes G^ographiques
d^Edfoo, J. DE Rouge : Revue Arch. Nouvelle Serie^ vol. xii. 1865 ; etc. etc.

424 THEBES.

Simbel and elsewhere. From whichever side one approaches
Medinet Habu, these stone shields strike the eye as a new and
interesting feature. They are, moreover, so far as I know, the
only specimens of Egyptian battlementing which have survived
destruction. Those of the wall of circuit are of the time of
Rameses V; those of the pavilion, of the time of Rameses III ;
and the latest, which are those of the forecourt, are of the
period of Roman occupation.

As biographical material, the Temple and Pavilion at
Medinet Habu and the great Harris papyrus,^ are to the life
of Rameses HI precisely what Abou Simbel, the Ramesseum,
and the poem of Pentaur, are to the life of Rameses H. Great
wars, great victories, magnificent praises of the prowess of the
King, pompous lists of enemies slain and captured, inventories
of booty and of precious gifts offered by the victor to the Gods
of Egypt, in both instances cover the sculptured walls and
fill the written pages. A comparison of the two masses of
evidence — due allowance being made both ways for Oriental
fervour of diction — shows that in Rameses HI we have to

^ The Great Harris Papyrus is described by Dr. Birch as " one of the
finest, best written, and best preserved, that have been discovered in
Egypt. It measures 133 feet long by i6| inches broad, and was found
with several others in a tomb behind Medinet Habu. Purchased soon
after by the late A. C. Harris of Alexandria, it was subsequently unrolled
and divided into seventy-nine leaves, and laid down on card-board. With
the exception of some small portions which are wanting in the first
leaf, the text is complete throughout." The papyrus purports to be a
post-mortem address of the King, Rameses HI, recounting the benefits
he had conferred upon Egypt by his administration, and by his delivery of
the country from foreign subjection. It also records the immense gifts
which he had conferred on the Temples of Egypt, of Amen at Thebes,
Tum at Heliopolis, and Ptah at Memphis, etc. " The last part is addressed
to the officers of the army, consisting partly of Sardinian and Libyan
mercenaries, and to the people of Egypt, in the thirty-second year of his
reign, and is a kind of posthumous panegyrical discourse, or political will,
like that of Augustus discovered at Ancyra. The papyrus itself consists
of the following divisions, three of which are preceded by large coloured
plates or vignettes : — Introduction : donations to the Theban deities ;
donations to the gods of Heliopolis ; donations to the gods of Memphis ;
donations to the gods of the north and south ; summary of donations ;
historical speech and conclusion. Throughout the monarch speaks in the
first person, the list excepted." Introduction to Annals of Rameses HI;
S. Birch : Records of the Past, vol. vi. p. 21 ; 1876-

THEBES. 425

do with a king as brilliant, as valorous, and as successful as
Rameses 11.^

It may be that before the time of this Pharaoh certain
Temples were used also as royal residences. It is possible to
believe this of Temples such as Gournah and Abydus, the plan
of which includes, besides the usual halls, side-chambers, and
sanctuary, a number of other apartments, the uses of which are
unknown. It may also be that former kings dwelt in houses
of brick and carved woodwork, such as we see represented in
the wall-paintings of various tombs.

It is at all events a fact that the only building which
we can assume to have been a royal palace, and of which
any vestiges have come down to the present day, was

1 " Rameses 1 1 1 was one of the most remarkable monarchs in the
annals of Egypt. A period of political confusion and foreign conquest of
the country preceded his advent to the throne. His father, Setnecht, had
indeed succeeded in driving out the foreign invaders, and re-establishing
the native dynasty of the Theban kings, the twentieth of the list of
Manetho. But Rameses had a great task before him, called to the throne
at a youthful age. . . . The first task of Rameses was to restore the civil
government and military discipline. In his fifth year, he defeated the
Maxyes and Libyans with great slaughter when they invaded Egypt, led
by five chiefs ; and in the same year he had also to repulse the Satu, or
eastern foreigners, who had attacked Egypt. The maritime nations of the
west, it appears, had invaded Palestine and the Syrian coast in his eighth
year, and after taking Carchemish, a confederation of the Pulusata,
supposed by some to be the Pelasgi, Tekkaru or Teucri, Sakahcsa or
Siculi, Tanau or Daunians, if not Danai, and Uasasa or Osci, marched to
the conquest of Egypt. It is possible that they reached the mouth of the
eastern branch of the Nile. But Rameses concentrated an army at Taha,
in Northern Palestine, and marched back to defend the Nile. Assisted
by his mercenary forces, he inflicted a severe defeat on the confederated
west, and returned with his prisoners to Thebes. In his eleventh year
the Mashuasha or Maxyes, assisted by the Tahennu or Libyans, again
invaded Egypt, to suffer a fresh defeat, and the country seems from this
period to have remained in a state of tranquillity. . . . The vast Temple
at Medinet Habu, his palaces and treasury, still remain to attest his
magnificence and grandeur ; and if his domestic life was that of an
ordinary Egyptian monarch, he was as distinguished in the battlefield as
the palace. Treason, no doubt, disturbed his latter days, and it is not
known how he died ; but he expired after a reign of thirty-one years and
some months, and left the throne to his son, it is supposed, about B.C.
1200." See Remarks upon the Cover of the Granite Sarcophagus of
Rameses HI : S, BiRCH, LL.D., Cambridge, 1876

426

THEBES.

erected by Rameses III, nameh', this little pavilion at Medinet
Habu.

[Al.Ai E ENTRANCE — MEDINBT HAI5U.

It may not have been a palace. It may have been only a
fortified gate ; but though the chambers are small, they are
well lighted, and the plan of the whole is certainly domestic in
character. It consists, as we now see it, of two lodges connected
by zigzag wings with a central tower. The lodges and tower
stand to each other as the three points of an acute angle.
These structures enclose an oblong courtyard leading by a
passage under the central tower to the sacred enclosure beyond.
So far as its present condition enables us to judge, this building
contained only eight rooms ; namely three, one above the other,
in each of the lodges, and two over the gateway.^ These three

1 " There is reason to believe that this is only a fragment of the building,

THEBES.

427

towers communicate by means of devious passages in the con-
necting wings. Two of the windows in the wings are adorned
with balconies supported on brackets ; each bracket representing
the head and shoulders of a crouching captive, in the attitude
of a gargoyle. The heads and dresses of these captives — con-
ceived as they are in a vein of Gothic barbarism — are still
bright with colour.

The central, or gateway -tower, is substantially perfect.
The Writer, with help, got as high as the first chamber ; the
ceiling of which is painted in a rich and intricate pattern, as in
imitation of mosaic. The top room is difficult of access ; but
can be reached by a good climber. Our friend F. W. S., who
made his way up there a }'ear or two before, found upon the

walls some interesting sculptures of cups and vases, apparently
part of an illustrated inventory of domestic utensils. Three
of these (unlike any engraved in the works of Wilkinson or
Rosellini) are here reproduced from his sketch made upon the
spot. The lid of the smaller vase, it will be observed, opens by

and foundations exist which render it probable that the whole was originally
a square of the width of the front, and had other chambers, probably in
wood or brick, besides those we now find. This would hardly detract from
the playful character of the design, and when coloured, as it originally was,
and with its battlements or ornaments complete, it must have formed a
composition as pleasing as it is unlike our usual conceptions of Egyptian
art." — Hist. 0/ Architecture, by J. Fergusson, Bk. i., ch. iv., p. 118.
Lend. 1865.

428 THEBES.

means of a lever spooned out for the thumb to rest in, just Hke
the lid of a German beer-mug of the present day.

The external decorations of the two lodges are of especial
interest. The lower subjects are historical. Those upon the
upper storeys are domestic or symbolical, and are among the
most celebrated of Egyptian bas-reliefs. They have long been
supposed to represent Rameses III in his hareem, entertained
and waited upon by female slaves. In one group the king,
distinguished always by his cartouches, sits at ease in a kind of
folding chair, his helmet on his head, his sandalled feet upon a
footstool, as one returned and resting after battle. In his left
hand he holds a round object like a fruit. With the right he
chucks under the chin an ear- ringed and necklaced damsel
who presents a lotus blossom at his nose. In another much
mutilated subject, they are represented playing a game at
draughts. This famous subject — which can only be seen when
the light strikes sidewise — would scarcely be intelligible save
for the help one derives from the cuts in Wilkinson and the
plates in Rosellini. It is not that the sculptures are effaced,
but that the great blocks which bore them are gone from their
places, having probably been hurled down bodily upon the
heads of the enemy during a certain siege of which the ruins
bear evident traces.^ Of the lady, there remains little beside
one arm and the hand that holds the pawn. The table has
disappeared. The king has lost his legs. It happens, how-
ever, though the table is missing, that the block next above it
contained the pawns, which can still be discerned from below
by the help of a glass. Rosellini mentions three or four more
subjects of a similar character, including a second group of
draught-players, all visible in his time. The Writer, however,
looked for them in vain.

^ Medinet Habu continued up to the period of the Arab invasion to be
inhabited by the Coptic descendants of its ancient builders. They fled,
however, before Amr and his army, since which time the place has been
deserted. It is not known whether the siege took place at the time of the
Arab invasion, or during the raid of Cambyses ; but whenever it was, the
place was evidently forced by the besiegers. The author of Murray's
Handbook draws attention to the fact that the granite jambs of the doorway
leading to the smaller Temple are cut through exactly at the place where
the bar was placed across the door.

THEBES. 429

These tableaux are supposed to illustrate the home-life of
Rameses III, and to confirm the domestic character of the
pavilion. Even the scarab-selling Arabs that haunt the ruins,
even the donkey-boys of Luxor, call it the Hareem of the
Sultan. Modern science, however, threatens to dispel one at
least of these pleasant fancies.

The king, it seems, under the name of Rhampsinitus, is the
hero of a very ancient legend related by Herodotus. While he
yet lived, runs the story, he descended into Hades, and there
played a game at draughts with the Goddess Demeter, from
whom he won a golden napkin ; in memory of which adventure,
and of his return to earth, " the Egyptians," says Herodotus,
" instituted a festival which they certainly celebrated in my
day,"^ In another version as told by Plutarch, Isis is sub-
stituted for Demeter. Viewing these tales by the light of a
certain passage of the Ritual, in which the happy dead is
promised " power to transform himself at will, to play at
draughts, to repose in a pavilion," Dr. Birch has suggested
that the whole of this scene may be of a memorial character,
and represent an incident in the Land of Shades.^

Below these " hareem " groups come colossal bas-reliefs of
a religious and military character. The King, as usual, smites
his prisoners in presence of the Gods. A slender and spirited
figure in act to slay, the fiery hero strides across the wall " like
Baal ^ descended from the heights of heaven. His limbs are

1 Herodotus, Bk. ii. chap. 122.

2 " A Medinet Habou, dans son palais, il s'est fait representer jouant
aux dames avec des femmes qui, d'apr^s certaines copies, semblent porter
sur la tete les fleurs symboliques de I'Egypte superieure et inf^rieure, comme
les deesses du monde superieur et inferieur, ou du ciel et de la terre. Cette
dualite des deesses, qui est indiqu^e dans les scenes religieuses et les textes
sacres par la reunion de Satis et Anoucis, Pasht et Bast, Isis et Nephthys,
etc., me fait penser que les tableaux de Medinet Habou peuvent avoir ete
considdres dans les legendes populaires comme offrant aux yeux I'allegorie
de la scene du jeu de dames entre le roi et la deesse Isis, dont Herodote a
fait la Demeter egyptienne, comme il a fait d'Osiris le Dionysus du meme
peuple." — Le Roi Rhampsinite et le Jeu des Dames, par S. BiRCH. Revue
Arch: Nouvelle Serie, vol. xii., p. 58. Paris: 1865.

3 Baal, written sometimes Bar, was, like Sutekh, a God borrowed
from the Phoenician mythology. The worship of Baal seems to have been
introduced into Egypt during the XlXth Dynasty. The other God here
mentioned, Mentu or Month, was a solar deity adored in the Thebaid, and

430 THEBES.

endued with the force of victory. With his right hand he
seizes the multitudes ; his left reaches like an arrow after those
who fly before him. His sword is sharp as that of his father
Mentu." '

Below these great groups run friezes sculptured with kneeling
figures of vanquished chiefs, among whom are Libyan, Sicilian,
Sardinian, and Etruscan leaders. Every head in these friezes
is a portrait. The Libyan is beardless ; his lips are thin ; his
nose is hooked ; his forehead retreats ; he wears a close-fitting
cap with a pendant hanging in front of the ear. The features
of the Sardinian chief ^ are no less Asiatic. He wears the
usual Sardinian helmet surmounted by a ball and two spikes.
The profile of the Sicilian closely resembles that of the Sar-
dinian. He wears a headdress like the modern Persian cap.
As ethnological types, these heads are extremely valuable.
Colonists not long since departed from the western coasts of
Asia Minor, these early European settlers are seen with the
Asiatic stamp of features ; a stamp which has now entirely
disappeared.

Other European nations are depicted elsewhere in these
Medinet Habu sculptures. Pelasgians from the Greek isles,
Oscans perhaps from Pompeii, Daunians from the districts
between Tarentum and Brundusium, figure here, each in their
national costume. Of these, the Pelasgian alone resembles the
modern European. On the left wall of the pavilion gateway,
going up towards the Temple, there is a large bas-relief of

especially worshipped at Hermonthis, now Erment ; a modern town of
some importance, the name of which is still almost identical with the Per-
Mentu of ancient days. Mentu was the Egyptian, and Baal the Phoenician,
god of war.

^ From one of the inscriptions at Medinet Habu, quoted by Chabas.
See Antiquite Historzgue, ch. iv. p. 238. Ed. 1873.

2 It is a noteworthy fact (and one which has not, so far as I know,
been previously noticed) that while the Asiatic and African chiefs represented
in these friezes are insolently described in the accompanying hieroglyphic
inscriptions as " the vile Libyan," " the vile Kushite," " the vile Mashuasha,"
and so forth, the European leaders, though likewise prostrate and bound,
are more respectfully designated as "the Great («-=>) of Sardinia," "the
Great of Sicily," " the Great of Etruria," etc. etc. May this be taken as
an indication that their strength as military powers was already more
formidable than that of the Egyptians' nearer neighbours ?

THEBES. 4.31

Rameses III leading a string of captives into the presence of
Amen-Ra. Among these, the sculptures being in a high state
of preservation, there are a number of Pelasgians, some of
whom have features of the classical Greek type, and are strik-
ingly handsome. The Pelasgic headdress resembles our old
infantry shako ; and some of the men wear disk-shaped amulets
pierced with a hole in the centre, through which is passed the
chain that suspends it round the neck.

Leaving to the left a fine sitting statue of Khons in green
basalt, and to the right his prostrate fellow, we pass under the
gateway, cross a space of desolate crude-brick mounds, and
see before us the ruins of the first pylon of the Great Temple of
Khem. Once past the threshold of this pylon, we enter upon
a succession of magnificent courtyards. The hieroglyphs here
are on a colossal scale, and are cut deeper than any others in
Egypt. They are also coloured with a more subtle eye to
effect. Struck by the unusual splendour of some of the blues,
and by a peculiar look of scintillation which they assumed in
certain lights, I examined them particularly, and found that
the effect had been produced by very subtle shades of gradation
in what appeared at first sight to be simple flat tints. In

some of the reeds (1), for instance, the ground-colour begins

at the top of the leaf in pure cobalt, and passes imperceptibly
down to a tint that is almost emerald green at the bottom.^

The inner walls of this great courtyard, and the outer face
of the north-east wall, are covered with sculptures outlined, so to
say, in intaglio, and relieved in the hollow, so that the forms,
though rounded, remain level with the general surface. In
these tableaux the old world lives again. Rameses III, his
sons and nobles, his armies, his foes, play once more the brief
drama of life and death. Great battles are fought ; great
victories are won ; the slain are counted ; the captured drag
their chains behind the victor's chariot ; the king triumphs, is

1 The grand blue of the ceiling of the colonnade of the Great Hypaethral
Court is also very remarkable for brilliancy and purity of tone ; while to
those interested in decoration the capital and abacus of the second column
to the right on entering this courtyard, offers an interesting specimen of
polychrome ornamentation on a gold-coloured ground.

432 THEBES.

crowned, and sacrifices to the Gods. Elsewhere more wars ;
more slaughter. There is revolt in Libya ; there are raids on
the Asiatic border ; there are invaders coming in ships from
the islands of the Great Sea. The royal standard is raised ;
troops assemble ; arms are distributed. Again the king goes
forth in his might, followed by the flower of Egyptian chivalry.
" His horsemen are heroes ; his foot soldiers are as lions that
roar in the mountains." The king himself flames " like Mentu
in his hour of wrath." He falls upon the foe " with the swift-
ness of a meteor." Here, crowded in rude bullock-trucks, they
seek safety in flight. Yonder their galleys are sunk ; their
warriors are slain, drowned, captured, scathed, as it were, in a
devouring fire. " Never again will they sow seed or reap
harvest on the fair face of the earth."

" Behold ! " says the Pharaoh, " Behold, I have taken their
frontiers for my frontiers ! I have devastated their towns,
burned their crops, trampled their people under foot. Rejoice,
O Egypt ! Exalt thy voice to the heavens ; for behold ! I
reign over all the lands of the barbarians ! I, King of Upper
and Lower Egypt, Rameses HI!"^

Such, linked each to each by a running commentary of
text, are the illustrations ; the story is written elsewhere.
Elaborately hieroglyphed in upwards of seventy closely-packed
columns, it covers the whole eastern face of the great north
tower of the second propylon. This propylon divides the
Osiride and Hypaethral courts, so that the inscription faces
those entering the Temple and precedes the tableaux. Not
even the poem of Pentaur is more picturesque, not even the
Psalms of David are more fervid, than the style of this great
Chronicle.^

The Writer pitched her tent in the doorway of the first
propylon, and thence sketched the north-west corner of the
courtyard, including the tower with the inscription and the

1 Inscriptions at Medinet Haba. See Chabas' Antiquite Histortque,
chap. iv. Paris : 1876.

2 The whole of this chronicle is translated by M. Chabas in L' Antiquite
Historique, chap. iv. p. 246 et seq. It is also engraved in full in Rosellini
{Monumenti Storici) ; and has been admirably photographed by both M.
Hammerschmidt and Signor Beata.

1 !••

434 THEBES.

Osiride colossi. The accompanying illustration faithfully re-
produces that sketch. The roof of the colonnade to the right
is cumbered with crude-brick ruins of mediaeval date. The
hieroglyphs, sculptured along the architrave and down the
sides of the pillars, are still bright with colour. The colossi
are all the worse for 3000 years of ill-usage. Through the
sculptured doorway opposite, one looks across the Hypaethral
Court, and catches a glimpse of the ruined Hall of Pillars
beyond.

While the Writer was at work in the shade of the first
pylon, an Arab story-teller took possession of that opposite
doorway, and entertained the donkey-boys and sailors. Well
paid with a little tobacco and a i&w copper piastres, he went
on for hours, his shrill chant rising every now and then to a
quavering scream. He was a wizened, grizzled old fellow,
miserably poor and tattered ; but he had the Arabian Nights
and hundreds of other tales by heart.

Mariette was of opinion that the Temple of Medinet Habu,
erected as it is on the side of the great Theban necropolis, is,
like the Ramesseum, a funerary monument erected by Rameses
III in his own lifetime to his own memory. These battered
colossi represent the king in the character of Osiris, and are in
fact on a huge scale precisely what the ordinary funerary statu-
ettes are upon a small scale. They would be out of place in
any but a monumental edifice ; and they alone suffice to
determine the character of the building.

And such, no doubt, was the character of the Amenophium ;
of the little Temple called Dayr el Medinet ; of the Temple of
Queen Hatshepsu, known as Dayr el Bahari ; of the Temple
of Gournah ; of almost every important structure erected upon
this side of the river. Of the Amenophium there remain only
a few sculptured blocks, a few confused foundations, and — last
representatives of an avenue of statues of various sizes — the
famous Colossi of the Plain.^ The Temple of Dayr el Bahari

1 These two statues — the best-known, probably, of all Egyptian monu-
ments— have been too often described, painted, engraved, and photographed^
to need more than a passing reference. Their featureless faces, their
attitude, their surroundings, are familiar as the Pyramids, even to those
who know not Egypt. We all know that they represent Amenhotep, or

THEBES. 435

— built in terraces up the mountain side, and approached once
upon a time by a magnificent avenue of sphinxes, the course
of which is yet visible — would probably be, if less ruined, the
most interesting temple on the western side of the river. The
monumental intention of this building is shown by its dedica-
tion to Hathor, the Lady of Amenti ; and by the fact that the
tomb of Queen Hatshepsu was identified by Rhind some
twenty-five years ago as one of the excavated sepulchres in
the cliff-side, close to where the temple ends by abutting against
the rock.

As for the Temple of Gournah, it is, at least in part, as
distinctly a memorial edifice as the Medici Chapel at Florence
or the Superga at Turin, It was begun by Seti I in memory
of his father Rameses I, the founder of the XlXth Dynasty.
Seti, however, died before the work was completed. Hereupon
Rameses II, his son and successor, extended the general plan,
finished the part dedicated to his grandfather, and added
sculptures to the memory of Seti I. Later still, Menepthah,
the son and successor of Rameses II, left his cartouches upon
one of the doorways. The whole building, in short, is a family
monument, and contains a family portrait gallery. Here all
the personages whose names figure in the shrines of the

Amunoph, III ; and that the northernmost was shattered to the waist by
the earthquake of B.C. 27. Being heard to give out a musical sound
during the first hour of the day, the statue was supposed by the ancients to
be endowed with a miraculous voice. The Greeks, believing it to represent
the fabled son of Tithonus and Aurora, gave it the name of Memnon ;
notwithstanding that the Egyptians themselves claimed the statues as
portraits of Amenhotep III. Prefects, Consuls, Emperors, and Empresses,
came "to hear Memnon," as the phrase then ran. Among the famous
visitors who travelled thither on this errand, we find Strabo, Germanicus,
Hadrian, and the Empress Sabina. Opinion is divided as to the cause of
this sound. There is undoubtedly a hollow space inside the throne of
this statue, as may be seen by all who examine it from behind ; and Sir G.
Wilkinson, in expressing his conviction that the musical sound was a piece
of priestly jugglery, represents the opinion of the majority. The author of
a carefully considered article in the Quarterly Review, No. 276, April
1875, coincides with Sir D. Brewster in attributing the sound to a trans-
mission of rarefied air through the crevices of the stone, caused by the
sudden change of temperature consequent on the rising of the sun. The
statue, which, like its companion, was originally one solid monolith of grit-
stone, was repaired with sandstone during the reign of Septimius Severus.

436 THEBES.

Ramessides at Silsilis are depicted in their proper persons.
In one tableau, Rameses I, defunct, deified,^ swathed, enshrined,
and crowned like Osiris, is worshipped by Seti I. Behind Seti
stands his Queen Tuaa, the mother of Rameses II. Elsewhere
Seti I, being now dead, is deified and worshipped by Rameses
II, who pours a libation to his father's statue. Through all
these handsome heads there runs a striking family likeness.
All more or less partake of that Dantesque type which charac-
terises the portraits of Rameses II in his youth. The features
of Rameses I and Seti I are somewhat pinched and stern, like
the Dante of elder days. The delicate profile of Queen Tuaa,
which is curiously like some portraits of Queen Elizabeth, is
perhaps too angular to be altogether pleasing. But in the
well-known face of Rameses II these harsher details vanish,
and the beauty of the race culminates. The artists of Egyptian
Renaissance, always great in profile-portraiture, are nowhere
seen to better advantage than in this interesting series.

Adjoining what may be called the monumental part of
the building, we find a number of halls and chambers, the uses
of which are unknown. Most writers assume that they were
the private apartments of the King. Some go so far as to
give the name of Temple-Palaces to all these great funerary
structures. It is, however, far more probable that these Western
Temples were erected in connection, though not in direct ,com-
munication, with the royal tombs in the adjacent valley of Bab-
el-Moluk.

Now every Egyptian tomb of importance has its outer
chamber or votive oratory, the walls of which are covered with
paintings descriptive, in some instances, of the occupations ot

1 This deification of the dead was not deification in the Roman sense ;
neither was it canonisation in the modern sense. The Egyptians believed
the justified dead to be assimilated, or rather identified, in the spirit with
Osiris, the beneficent Judge and Deity of the lower world. Thus, in their
worship of ancestry, they adored not mortals immortalised, but the dead in
Osiris, and Osiris in the dead.

It is worth noting, by the way, that notwithstanding the subsequent
deification of Seti I, Rameses I remained, so to say, the tutelar)' saint
of the Temple. He alone is represented with the curious pointed and
upturned beard, like a chamois horn reversed, which is the peculiar
attribute of deity-

THEBES. 437

the deceased upon earth, and in others of the adventures of his
soul after death. Here at stated seasons the survivors repaired
with offerings. No priest, it would seem, of necessity officiated
at these little services. A whole family would come, bringing
the first fruits of their garden, the best of their poultry, cakes
of home-made bread, bouquets of lotus blossoms. With their
own hands they piled the altar ; and the eldest son, as repre-
sentative of the rest, burned the incense and poured the libations.
It is a scene constantly reproduced upon monuments ^ of every
epoch. These votive oratories, however, are wholly absent in
the valley of Bab-el-Moluk. The royal tombs consist of only
tunnelled passages and sepulchral vaults, the entrances to
which were closed for ever as soon as the sarcophagus was
occupied ; hence it may be concluded that each memorial
temple played to the tomb of its tutelary saint and sovereign
that part which is played by the external oratory attached to
the tomb of a private individual. Nor must it be forgotten
that as early as the time of the Pyramid Kings, there was a
votive chapel attached to every pyramid, the remains of which
are traceable in almost every instance, on the east side. There
were also priests of the pyramids, as we learn from innumerable
funerary inscriptions.

An oratory on so grand a scale would imply an elaborate
ceremonial. A dead and deified king would doubtless have
his train of priests, his daily liturgies, processions, and sacrifices.
All this again implies additional accommodation, and accounts,
I venture to think, for any number of extra halls and chambers.
Such sculptures as yet remain on the walls of these ruined
apartments are, in fact, wholly funereal and sacrificial in
character. It is also to be remembered that we have here a

1 There is among the funereal tablets of the Boulak collection a small
bas-relief sculpture representing the arrival of a family of mourners at the
tomb of a deceased ancestor. The statue of the defunct sits at the upper
end. The mourners are laden with offerings. One little child carries a
lamb ; another a goose. A scribe stands by, waiting to register the gifts.
The tablet commemorates one Psamtik-nefar-Sam, a hierogrammate under
some king of the XXV 1th Dynasty. The natural grace and simple pathos
with which this little frieze is treated lift it far above the level of ordinary
Egyptian art, and bear comparison with the class of monuments lately
discovered on the Eleusinian road at Athens.

438 THEBES.

temple dedicated to two kings, and served most likely by a
twofold college of priests.^

The wall-sculptures at Gournah are extremely beautiful,
especially those erected by Seti I. Where it has been acciden-
tally preserved, the surface is as smooth, the execution as
brilliant, as the finest mediaeval ivory carving. Behind a broken
column, for instance, that leans against the south west wall of
the sanctuary ,2 one may see, by peeping this way and that, the
ram's-head prow of a sacred boat, quite unharmed, and of
surpassing delicacy. The modelling of the ram's head is simply
faultless. It would indeed be scarcely too much to say that
this one fragment, if all the rest had perished, would alone
place the decorative sculpture of ancient Egypt in a rank
second only to that of Greece.

The Temple of Gournah — northernmost of the Theban
group — stands at the mouth of that famous valley called by
the Arabs Bab-el-Molfik,^ and by travellers, the Valley of the
Tombs of the Kings. This valley may be described as a bifur-
cated ravine, ending in two culs de sacs, and hemmed in on all
sides by limestone precipices. It winds round behind the cliffs
which face Luxor and Karnak, and runs almost parallel with
the Nile. This range of cliffs is perforated on both sides with
tombs. The priests and nobles of many dynasties were buried
terrace above terrace on the side next the river. Back to back
with them, in the silent and secret valley beyond, slept the
kings in their everlasting sepulchres.

Most travellers moor for a day or two at Karnak, and
thence make their excursion to Bab-el-Moluk. By so doing
they lose one of the most interesting rides in the neighbourhood
of Thebes. L. and the Writer started from Luxor one morning
about an hour after daybreak, crossing the river at the usual

1 " Une dignite tout k fait particulier est celle que les inscriptions
hieroglyphiques designent par le titre ' prophfete de la pyramide, de tel
pharaon.' II parait qu'apr^s sa mort chaque roi etait vendr^ par un culte
special." Histoire d'Egypte : Brugsch. 2d ed. chap. v. p. 35.
Leipzig: 1875.

2 There is a verj' curious window at the end of this sanctuary, with
grooves for the shutter, and holes in which to slip and drop the bar by
which it was fastened.

^ The Gate of the King.

THEBES. 439

point and thence riding northwards along the bank, with the
Nile on the one hand, and the corn-lands on the other. In
the course of such rides, one discovers the almost incredible
fertility of the Thebaid. Every inch of arable ground is turned
to account. All that grows, grows lustily. The barley ripples
in one uninterrupted sweep from Medinet Habu to a point
half-way between the Ramesseum and Gournah. Next come
plantations of tobacco, cotton, hemp, linseed, maize and lentils,
so closely set, so rich in promise, that the country looks as if
it were laid out in allotment grounds for miles together. Where
the rice crop has been gathered, clusters of temporary huts have
sprung up in the clearings ; for the fellahin come out from their
crowded villages in " the sweet o' the year," and live in the
midst of the crops which now they guard, and which presently
they will reap. The walls of these summer huts are mere
wattled fences of Indian corn straw, with bundles of the same
laid lightly across the top by way of roofing. This pastoral
world is everywhere up and doing. Here are men plying the
shaduf by the river's brink ; women spinning in the sun ;
children playing ; dogs barking ; larks soaring and singing
overhead. Against the foot of the cliffs yonder, where the
vegetation ends and the tombs begin, there flows a calm river
edged with palms. A few months ago, we should have
been deceived by that fairy water. We know now that it is
the mirage.

Striking off by and by towards the left, we make for a
point where the mountains recede and run low, and a wedge-
like "spit" of sandy desert encroaches upon the plain. On the
verge of this spit stands a clump of sycamores and palms. A
row of old yellow columns supporting a sculptured architrave
gleams through the boughs ; a little village nestles close by ;
and on the desert slope beyond, in the midst of a desolate Arab
burial-ground, we see a tiny mosque with one small cupola,
dazzling white in the sunshine. This is Gournah. There is a
spring here, and some girls are drawing water from the well
near the Temple. Our donkeys slake their thirst from the
cattle-trough — a broken sarcophagus that may once have held
the mummy of a. king. A creaking sakkieh is at work yonder,
turned by a couple of red cows with mild Hathor-like faces.

440 THEBES.

The old man who drives them sits in the middle of the cog-
wheel, and goes slowly round as if he was being roasted.

We now leave behind us the well, and the trees, and the old
Greek-looking Temple, and turn our faces westward, bound for
an opening yonder among cliffs pitted with the mouths of empty
tombs. It is plain to see that we are now entering upon what
was once a torrent-bed. Rushing down from the hills, the
pent-up waters have here spread fan-like over the slope of the
desert, strewing the ground with boulders, and ploughing it
into hundreds of tortuous channels. Up that torrent-bed lies
our road to-day.

The weird rocks stand like sentinels to right and left as
one enters the mouth of the valley, and take strange shapes as
of obelisks and sphinxes. Some, worn at the base, and tower-
ing like ruined pyramids above, remind us of tombs on the
Appian Way. As the ravine narrows, the limestone walls rise
higher. The chalky track glares under-foot. Piles of shivered
chips sparkle and scintillate at the foot of the rocks. The cliffs
burn at a white heat. The atmosphere palpitates like gaseous
vapour. The sun blazes overhead. Not a breath stirs ; neither
is there a finger's breadth of shade on either side. It is like
riding into the mouth of a furnace. Meanwhile, one looks in
vain for any sign of life. No blade of green has grown here
since the world began. No breathing creature makes these
rocks its home. All is desolation — such desolation as one
dreams of in a world scathed by fire from heaven.

When we have gone a long way, always tracking up the
bed of the torrent, we come to a place where our donkeys turn
off from the main course and make for what is evidently a forced
passage cut clean through a wall of solid limestone. The place
was once a mere recess in the cliffs ; but on the farther side,
masked by a natural barrier of rock, there lay another valley
leading to a secluded amphitheatre among the mountains. The
first Pharaoh who chose his place of burial among those hidden
ways, must have been he who cut the pass and levelled the
road by which we now travel. This cutting is Bab-el-Moluk
— the Gate of the King ; a name which doubtless perpetuates
that by which the place was known to the old Egyptians.
Once through the Gate, a grand mountain rises into view.

THEBES. 44 i

Egypt is the land of strange mountains ; and here is one which
reproduces on a giant scale every feature of the pyramid of
Ouenephes at Sakkarah. It is square ; it rises stage above
stage in ranges of columnar cliffs with slopes of debris between ;
and it terminates in a blunt four-sided peak nearly 1 800 feet
above the level of the plain.

Keeping this mountain always before us, we now follow
the windings of the second valley, which is even more narrow,
parched, and glaring than the first. Perhaps the intense heat
makes the road appear longer than it really is ; but it seems
to us like several miles. At length the uniformity of the way
is broken. Two small ravines branch off, one to the right,
one to the left ; and in both, at the foot of the rocks, there
are here and there to be seen square openings, like cellar-
doors, half sunk below the surface, and seeming to shoot down-
wards into the bowels of the earth. In another moment or
so, our road ends suddenly in a wild tumbled waste, like an
exhausted quarry, shut in all round by impending precipices,
at the base of which more rock-cut portals peep out at different
points.

From the moment when it first came into sight, I had
made certain that in that pyramidal mountain we should find
the Tombs of the Kings — so certain, that I can scarcely believe
our guide when he assures us that these cellars are the places
we have come to see, and that the mountain contains not a
single tomb. We alight, however ; climb a steep slope ; and
find ourselves on the threshold of No. i 7.

" Belzoni-tomb," says our guide ; and Belzoni's tomb, as we
know, is the tomb of Seti the First.

I am almost ashamed to remember now that we took our
luncheon in the shade of that solemn vestibule, and rested and
made merry, before going down into the great gloomy sepulchre
whose staircases and corridors plunged away into the darkness
below, as if they led straight to the land of Amenti.

The tombs in the Valley of Bab-el-Moluk are as unlike the
tombs in the cliffs opposite Luxor as if the Theban kings and
the Theban nobles were of different races and creeds. Those
sacred scribes and dignitaries, with their wives and families
and their numerous friends and dependants, were a joyous set

442 THEBES.

They loved the things of this life, and would fain have carried
their pursuits and pleasures with them into the land beyond
the grave. So they decorated the walls of their tombs with
pictures of the way in which their lives were spent, and hoped
perhaps that the mummy, dreaming away its long term of
solitary waiting, might take comfort in those shadowy reminis-
cences. The kings, on the contrary, covered every foot of their
last palaces with scenes from the life to come. The wanderings
of the soul after its separation from the body, the terrors and
dangers that beset it during its journey through Hades, the
demons it must fight, the accusers to whom it must answer, the
transformations it must undergo, afforded subjects for endless
illustration. Of the fishing and fowling and feasting and
junketing that we saw the other day in those terraces behind
the Ramesseum, we discover no trace in the tombs of Bab-el-
MoKak. In place of singing and lute-playing, we find here
prayers and invocations ; for the pleasant Nile-boat, and the
water-parties, and the chase of the gazelle and the ibex, we
now have the bark of Charon, and the basin of purgatorial fire,
and the strife with the infernal deities. The contrast is sharp
and strange. It is as if an Epicurean aristocracy had been
ruled by a line of Puritan kings. The tombs of the subjects
are Anacreontics. The tombs of their sovereigns are peniten-
tial psalms.

To go down into one of these great sepulchres is to descend
one's-self into the Lower World, and to tread the path of the
shades. Crossing the threshold, we look up — half-expecting
• to read those terrible words in which all who enter are warned
to leave hope behind them. The passage slopes before our
feet ; the daylight fades behind us. At the end of the passage
comes a flight of steps, and from the bottom of that flight of
steps we see another corridor slanting down into depths of
utter darkness. The walls on both sides are covered with
close-cut columns of hieroglyphic text, interspersed with ominous
shapes, half-deity, half-demon. Huge serpents writhe beside
us along the walls. Guardian spirits of threatening aspect
advance, brandishing swords of flame. A strange heaven opens
overhead — a heaven where the stars travel in boats across the
seas of space ; and the Sun, escorted by the hours, the months.

THEBES. 443

and the signs of the zodiac, issues from the East, sets in the
West, and traverses the hemisphere of Everlasting Night. We
go on, and the last gleam of daylight vanishes in the distance.
Another flight of steps leads now to a succession of passages
and halls, some smaller, some larger, some vaulted, some
supported on pillars. Here yawns a great pit half full of
■debris. Yonder opens a suite of unfinished chambers abandoned
by the workmen. The farther we go, the more weird become
our surroundings. The walls swarm with ugly and evil things.
Serpents, and bats, and crocodiles, some with human heads and
legs, some vomiting fire, some armed with spears and darts,
pursue and torture the wicked. These unfortunates have their
hearts torn out ; are boiled in cauldrons ; are suspended head
downwards over seas of flame ; are speared, decapitated, and
driven in headless gangs to scenes of further torment. Beheld
by the dim and shifting light of a few candles, these painted
horrors assume an aspect of ghastly reality. They start into
life as we pass, then drop behind us into darkness. That
darkness alone is awful. The atmosphere is suffocating. The
place is ghostly and peopled with nightmares.

Elsewhere we come upon scenes less painful. The Sun
emerges from the lower hemisphere. The justified dead sow
and reap in the Elysian fields, gather celestial fruits, and bathe
in the waters of truth. The royal mummy reposes in its shrine.
Funerary statues of the king are worshipped with incense, and
offerings of meat, and libations of wine.^ Finally the king
arrives, purified and justified, at the last stage of his spiritual

1 These funerary statues are represented each on a stand or platform,
erect, with one foot advanced, as if walking, the right hand holding the
ankh, or symbol of life, the left hand grasping a staff. The attitude is that
of the wooden statue at Boulak ; and it is worth remark that the figures
stand detached, with no support at the back, which was never the case with
those carved in stone or granite. There can be no doubt that this curious
series of funerary statues represents those which were actually placed in the
tomb ; and that the ceremonies here represented were actually peformed
before them, previous to closing the mouth of the sepulchre. One of
these very wooden statues, from this very tomb, was brought to England
by Belzoni, and is now in the British Museum (No. 854, Central Saloon).
The wood is much decayed, and the statue ought undoubtedly to be placed
under glass. The tableaux representing the above ceremonies are well
copied in Rosellini, Mon. del Culto, plates 60-63.

444 THEBES.

journey. He is welcomed by the Gods, ushered into the
presence of Osiris, and received into the Abode of the Blest.^

Coming out for a moment into bHnding dayhght, we drink
a long draught of pure air, cross a few yards of uneven ground,
arrive at the mouth of another excavation, and plunge again
into underground darkness. A third and a fourth time we
repeat this strange experience. It is like a feverish sleep,
troubled by gruesome dreams, and broken by momentary
wakings.

These tombs in a general way are very much alike. Some
are longer than others ;^ some loftier. In some the descent is
gradual ; in others it is steep and sudden. Certain leading
features are common to all. The great serpent,^ the scarab,*
the bat,^ the crocodile,^ are always conspicuous on the walls.
The judgment-scene, and the well-known typical picture of the
four races of mankind, are continually reproduced. Some
tombs,'^ however, vary both in plan and decoration. That of

1 A remarkable inscription in this tomb, relating the wrath of Ra and
the destruction of mankind, is translated by M. Naville, vol. iv. Pt. i.
Translations of the Biblical Arch. Society. In this singular myth, which
bears a family resemblance to the Chaldasan record of the Flood, the deluge
is a deluge of human blood. The inscription covers the walls of a small
chamber known as the Chamber of the Cow.

- The longest tomb in the valley, which is that of Seti I, measures
470 feet in length to the point where it is closed by the falling in of the
rock ; and the total depth of its descent is about 1 80 feet. The tomb of
Rameses III (No. 11) measures in length 405 feet, and descends only 31
feet. The rest average from about 350 to 150 feet in length, and the
shortest is e.xcavated to a distance of only 65 feet.

We visited, however, one tomb in the Assaseef, which in extent far
exceeds any of the tombs of the kings. This astonishing excavation, which
consists of a bewildering labyrinth of halls, passages, staircases, pits, and
chambers, is calculated at 23,809 square feet. The name of the occupant
was Petamunap, a priest of uncertain date.

3 Apophis, in Egyptian Apap; the great serpent of darkness, over
whom Ra must triumph after he sets in the west, and before he again rises
in the east.

* Kheper, the scarab deity. See chap. vi. p. 96.

^ Symbolical of darkness.

6 The crocodile represents Sebek. In one of the Boulak papyri, this
God is called the son of Isis, and combats the enemies of Osiris. Here he
combats Apophis in behalf of Ra.

' The tomb numbered 3 in the first small ravine to the left as one rides
up the valley, bears the cartouches of Rameses II. The Writer crawled

THEBES. 445

Kameses III, though not nearly so beautiful as the tomb ot
Seti I, is perhaps the most curious of all. The paintings here
are for the most part designed on an unsculptured surface
coated with white stucco. The drawing is often indifferent,
and the colouring is uniformly coarse and gaudy. Yellow
abounds ; and crude reds and blues remind us of the coloured
picture-books of our childhood. It is difficult to understand,
indeed, how the builder of Medinet Habu, with the best
Egyptian art of the day at his command, should have been
content with such wall-paintings as these.

Still Rameses III seems to have had a grand idea of going
in state to the next world, with his retainers around him. In
a series of small antechambers opening off from the first
corridor, we see. depicted all the household furniture, all the
plate, the weapons, the wealth and treasure of the king. Upon
the walls of one the cooks and bakers are seen preparing the
royal dinner. In the others are depicted magnificent thrones ;
gilded galleys with parti-coloured sails ; gold and silver vases ;
rich store of arms and armour ; piles of precious woods, of
panther skins, of fruits, and birds, and curious baskets, and alf
such articles of personal luxury as a palace-building Pharaoh
might delight in. Here also are the two famous harpers ;
cruelly defaced, but still sweeping the strings with the old
powerful touch that erewhile soothed the king in his hours
of melancholy. These two spirited figures — which are un-
doubtedly portraits ^ — almost redeem the poverty of the rest
of the paintings.

In many tombs, the empty sarcophagus yet occupies its
ancient place.^ We saw one in No. 2 (Rameses IV), and
another in No. 9 (Rameses VI) ; the first, a grand monolith

in as far as the choked condition of the tomb permitted, but the passage
becomes quite impassable after the first thirty or forty yards.

^ When first seen by Sir G. Wilkinson, these harpers were still in such
good preservation, that he reported of one at least, if not both, as obviously
blind. The harps are magnificent, richly inlaid and gilded, and adorned
with busts of the king. One has eleven strings, the other fourteen.

2 The sarcophagus of Seti I, which was brought to England by
Belzoni, is in Sir J. Soane's Museum. It is carved from a single block
of the finest alabaster, and is covered with incised hieroglyphic texts and
several hundred figures, descriptive of the passage of the sun through the

446 THEBES.

of dark granite, overturned and but little injured ; the second,
shattered by early treasure-seekers.

Most of the tombs at Bab-el-Moluk were open in Ptolemaic
times. Being then, as now, among the stock sights and
wonders of Thebes, they were visited by crowds of early
travellers, who have as usual left their neatly-scribbled graffiti
on the walls. When and by whom the sepulchres were
originally violated is of course unknown. Some, doubtless,
were sacked by the Persians ; others were plundered by the
Egyptians themselves, long enough before Cambyses. Not
even in the days of the Ramessides, though a special service
of guards was told off for duty in " the Great Valley," were the
kings safe in their tombs. During the reign of Rameses IX
— whose own tomb is here, and known as No. 6 — there seems
to have been an organised band, not only of robbers, but of
receivers, who lived by depredations of the kind. A contem-
porary papyrus ^ tells how in one instance the royal mummies

hours of the night. See Le Sarcophage de Sett I. P. Pierret. Revue
Arch. vol. xxi. p. 285 : 1870.

The sarcophagus of Rameses III is in the Fitz-WilHam Museum,
Cambridge, and the Hd thereof is in the Egyptian collection of the Louvre.
See Remarks on the Sarcophagus of Rameses III. S. Birch, LL.D. ;
Cambridge, 1876. Also Notice Sommaire des Monutnents Egvptiens du
Louvre. E. De Roug^, p. 51 : Paris, 1873.

1 Abbot Papyrus, British Museum. This papyrus, which has been
translated by M. Chabas {Mclatiges Egyptologiqties, 3d Serie : Paris and
Chalon, 1870), gives a list of royal tombs inspected by an Egyptian
Commission in the month of Athyr (year unknown), during the reign of
Rameses IX. Among the tombs visited on this occasion mention is
especially made of " the funeral monument of the king En-Aa, which is
at the north of the Amenophium of the terrace. The monument is broken
into from the back, at the place where the stela is placed before the
monument, and having the statue of the king upon the front of the stela,
with his hound, named Bahuka, between his legs. Verified this day, and
found intact." Such was the report of the writer of this papyrus of 3000
years ago. And now comes one of the wonders of modern discovery.
It was but a few years ago that Mariette, excavating in that part of the
Necropohs called the Assaseef, which lies to the north of the ruins of the
Amenophium, discovered the remains of the tomb of this very king, and
the broken stela bearing upon its face a full-length bas-relief of King
En-Aa (or Entef-Aa), with three dogs before him and one between his legs ;
the dog Bahuka having his name engraved over his back in hieroglyphic
characters. — See Tablet of Antefaa II. S. Birch, LL.D. Transactions
of the Biblical Arch. Society, vol. iv. part i. p. 172.

THEBES. 447

were found lying in the dust, their gold and silver ornaments^
and the treasures of their tombs, all stolen. In another instance,
a king and his queen were carried away bodily, to be unrolled
and rifled at leisure. This curious information is all recorded
in the form of a report, drawn up by the Commandant of
Western Thebes, who, with certain other officers and magistrates,
officially inspected the tombs of the " Royal Ancestors " during:
the reign of Rameses IX.

No royal tomb has been found absolutely intact in the
valley of Bab-el-Moluk. Even that of Seti the First had been
secretly entered ages before ever Belzoni discovered it. He
found in it statues of wood and porcelain, and the mummy of
a bull ; but nothing of value save the sarcophagus, which was
empty. There can be no doubt that the priesthood were
largely implicated in these contemporary sacrileges. Of thirty-
nine persons accused by name in the papyrus just quoted^
seven are priests, and eight are sacred scribes.

To rob the dead was always a lucrative trade at Thebes ;
and we may be certain that the splendid Pharaohs who slept
in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings,^ went to their dark

1 The beautiful jewels found upon the mummy of Queen Aah-Hotep»
show how richly the royal dead were adorned, and how well worth plunder-
ing their sepulchres must have been. These jewels have been so often
photographed, engraved, and described, that they are familiar to even
those who have not seen them in the Boulak Museum. The circumstances
of the discovery were suspicious, the mummy (in its inner mummy-case
only) having been found by Mariette's diggers in the loose sand but a
few feet below the surface, near the foot of the hillside known as Drah
Abu'l Neggah, between Goumah and the opening to the Valley of the
Tombs of the Kings. When it is remembered that the great outer
sarcophagus of this Queen was found in 1881 in the famous vault at
Dayr-el-Bahari, where so many royal personages and relics were dis-
covered "at one fell swoop"; and when to this is added the curious fact
that the state axe of Prince Kames, and a variety of beautiful poignards^
and other miscellaneous objects of value were found laid in the loose folds
of this Queen's outer wrappings, it seems to me that the mystery of her un-
sepulchred burial is susceptible of a very simple explanation. My own
conviction is that Queen Aah-Hotep's mummy had simply been brought
thither from the depths of the said vault by the Arabs, who had for sa
many years possessed the secret of that famous hiding-place, and that it
was temporarily buried in the sand till a convenient opportunity should
occur for transporting to Luxor. Moreover, it is significant that no jewels
were found upon the royal mummies in the Dayr-el-Bahari vault, for the

448 THEBES.

palaces magnificently equipped for the life to come.^ When,
indeed, one thinks of the jewels, furniture, vases, ointments,
clothing, arms, and precious documents which were as certainly
buried in those tombs as the royal mummies for whom they
were excavated, it seems far more wonderful that the parure
of one queen should have escaped, rather than that all the rest
of these dead and gone royalties should have fallen among
thieves.

Of all tombs in the Valley of Bab-el-Moluk, one would
rather, I think, have discovered that of Rameses III. As he
was one of the richest of the Pharaohs " and an undoubted

reason, no doubt, that they had long since been taken out and sold. The
jewels found with Aah-Hotep may therefore have represented the final
clearance, and have been collected from a variety of other royal mummy-
cases. That the state axe of Prince Kames was among them does not,
I imagine, prove that Prince Kames was the husband of Queen Aah-Hotep,
but only that he himself was also a tenant of that historic vault. The
actual proof that he was her husband lies in the fact that the bracelets on
her wrists, the diadem on her head, and the pectoral ornament on her
breast, were engraved, or inlaid, with the cartouches of that prince. [Note
to Second Edition.]

1 There is in one of the Papyri of the Louvre a very curious illustration,
representing — ist, the funeral procession of one Neb-Set, deceased; 2nd,
the interior of the sepulchre, with the mummy, the offerings, and the
furniture of the tomb, elaborately drawn and coloured. Among the objects
here shown are two torches, three vases, a coffer, a mirror, a Kohl bottle,
a pair of sandals, a staff, a vase for ointment, a perfume bottle, and an
ablution jar. " These objects, all belonging to the toilette (for the coffer
would have contained clothing), were placed in the tomb for that day of
waking which the popular belief promised to the dead. The tomb was
therefore furnished like the abodes of the living." — -Translated from T.
Dev^RIA, Catalogue des Majiusoifs Egypttens dtc Louvre: Paris, 1875,
p. 80. The plan of the sepulchre of Neb-Set is also drawn upon this
papyrus ; and the soul of the deceased, represented as a human-headed
bird, is shown flying down towards the mummy. A fine sarcophagus in
the Boulak museum (No. 84) is decorated in like manner with a representa-
tion of the mummy on its bier being visited, or finally rejoined, by the
soul. I have also in my own collection a funeral papyrus vignetted on one
side with this same subject ; and bearing on the reverse side an archi-
tectural elevation of the monument erected over the sepulchre of the
deceased.

2 "King Rhampsinitus (Rameses III) was possessed, they said, of
great riches in silver, indeed, to such an amount that none of the princes,
his successors, surpassed or even equalled his wealth." ^ — Herodotus,
Book ii. chap. 121.

THEBES. 449

virtuoso in his tastes, so we may be sure that his tomb was
furnished with all kinds of beautiful and precious things.
What would we not give now to find some of those elaborate
gold and silver vases, those cushioned thrones and sofas, those
bows and quivers and shirts of mail so carefully catalogued on
the walls of the side-chambers in the first corridor ! I do not
doubt that specimens of all these things were buried with the
king and left ready for his use. He died, believing that his
Ka would enjoy and make use of these treasures, and that
his soul would come back after long cycles of probation, and
make its home once more in the mummied body. He thought
he should rise as from sleep ; cast off his bandages ; eat and
be refreshed, and put on sandals and scented vestments, and
take his staff in his hand, and go forth again into the light
of everlasting day. Poor ghost, wandering bodiless through
space ! where now are thy funeral-baked meats, thy changes of
raiment, thy perfumes and precious ointments } Where is that
body for which thou wert once so solicitous, and without which
resurrection ^ is impossible ? One fancies thee sighing forlorn
through these desolate halls when all is silent and the moon
shines down the valley.

Life at Thebes is made up of incongruities. A morning
among temples is followed by an afternoon of antiquity-
hunting ; and a day of meditation among tombs winds up
with a dinner-party on board some friend's dahabeeyah, or a
fantasia at the British Consulate. L. and the Writer did their
fair share of antiquity-hunting both at Luxor and elsewhere ;
but chiefly at Luxor. I may say, indeed, that our life here
was one long pursuit of the pleasures of the chase. The
game, it is true, was prohibited ; but we enjoyed it none

1 Impossible from the Egyptian point of view. "That the body
should not waste or decay was an object of anxious solicitude ; and for
this purpose various bandlets and amulets, prepared with certain magical
preparations, and sanctified with certain spells or prayers, or even offerings
and small sacrifices, were distributed over various parts of the mummy.
In some mysterious manner the immortality of the body was deemed as
important as the passage of the soul ; and at a later period the growth or
natural reparation of the body was invoked as earnestly as the life or
passage of the soul to the upper regions." — See Introduction to the Funereal
Ritual, S. Birch, LL.D., in vol. v. of Bunsen's Egy^t : Lond. 1867.

2 G

4SO THEBES.

the less because it was illegal. Perhaps we enjoyed it the
more.

There were whispers about this time of a tomb that had
been discovered on the western side — a wonderful tomb, rich
in all kinds of treasures. No one, of course, had seen these
things. No one knew who had found them. No one knew
where they were hidden. But there was a solemn secrecy
about certain of the Arabs, and a conscious look about some
of the visitors, and an air of awakened vigilance about the
government officials, which savoured of mystery. These
rumours by and by assumed more definite proportions. Dark
hints were dropped of a possible papyrus ; the M. B.'s babbled
of mummies ; and an American dahabeeyah, lying innocently
off Karnak, was reported to have a mummy on board. Now,
neither L. nor the Writer desired to become the happy
proprietor of an ancient Egyptian ; but the papyrus was a
thing to be thought of In a fatal hour we expressed a wish
to see it. From that moment every mummy-snatcher in the
place regarded us as his lawful prey. Beguiled into one den
after another, we were shown all the stolen goods in Thebes.
Some of the things were very curious and interesting. In one
house we were offered two bronze vases, each with a band of
delicately -engraved hieroglyphs running round the lip ; also
a square stand of basket-work in two colours, precisely like
that engraved in Sir G. Wilkinson s first volume,^ after the
original in the Berlin Museum. Pieces of mummy -case
and wall - sculpture and sepulchral tablets abounded ; and
on one occasion we were introduced into the presence of — a
mummy !

All these houses were tombs, and in this one the mummy
was stowed away in a kind of recess at the end of a long rock-
cut passage ; probably the very place once occupied by the
original tenant. It was a mummy of the same period as that
which we saw disentombed under the auspices of the Governor,
and was enclosed in the same kind of cartonnage, patterned in
marty colours on a white ground. I shall never forget that
curious scene — the dark and dusty vault ; the Arabs with their

''"^ The Ancient Egyptians^ Sir G. Wilkinson; vol. i. chap. ii. woodcut
No. 92. Lond. 1 87 1

THEBES. 451

lanterns ; the mummy in its gaudy cerements lying on an old
mat at our feet.

Meanwhile we tried in vain to get sight of the coveted
papyrus. A grave Arab dropped in once or twice after night-
fall, and talked it over vaguely with the dragoman ; but never
came to the point. He offered it first, with a mummy, for
;^iOO. Finding, however, that we would neither buy his
papyrus unseen nor his mummy at any price, he haggled and
hesitated for a day or two, evidently trying to play us off
against some rival or rivals unknown, and then finally dis-
appeared. These rivals, we afterwards found, were the M. B.'s.
They bought both mummy and papyrus at an enormous
price ; and then, unable to endure the perfume of their ancient
Egyptian, drowned the dear departed at the end of a week.

Other purchasers are possibly less sensitive. We heard, at
all events, of fifteen mummies successfully insinuated through
the Alexandrian Custom-house by a single agent that winter.
There is, in fact, a growing passion for mummies among Nile
travellers. Unfortunately, the prices rise with the demand ;
and although the mine is practically inexhaustible, a mummy
nowadays becomes not only a prohibited, but a costly luxury.

At Luxor, the British, American, and French Consuls are
Arabs. The Prussian Consul is a Copt. The Austrian Consul
is, or was, an American. The French Consul showed us over
the old tumble -down building called "The French House," ^
which, though but a rude structure of palm-timbers and sun-
dried clay, built partly against and partly over the Temple of
Luxor, has its place in history. For there, in 1829, Champollion

1 The old French House is now swept away, with the rest of the
modern Arab buildings which encumbered the ruins of the Temple of
Luxor (see footnote, pp. 143, 144). I sketched it on the spot, and my
sketch was reproduced as a whole-page illustration for the first edition of
this book. Although the scene is now completely changed, that plate is
re-issued with the present edition as a memento of the past, and as a
fragment of recent history. With it, and by way of contrast, I am enabled,
by the courtesy of the proprietor of the Illustrated London News, to give
an engraving of part of the colonnade surrounding the sanctuary, over
which the old French House was built. These particular columns, if I am
not much mistaken, bounded the west side of the courtyard through which
one passed to the flight of steps leading up to Lady Duff Gordon's rooms.
[Note to Second Edition.]

THEBES.

45:

and Rosellini lived and worked together, during part of their
long sojourn at Thebes. Rosellini tells how they used to
sit up at night, dividing the fruits of the day's labour ;

OLi.MNS 01 AMICNUOTEI' IH (l.l X'ik).

Champollion copying whatever might be useful for his
Egyptian grammar, and Rosellini, the new words that
furnished material for his dictionary. There, too, lodged the

454 THEBES.

naval officers sent out by the French in 1831 to remove the
obelisk which now stands in the Place de la Concorde. And
there, writing those charming letters that delight the world,
Lady Duff Gordon lingered through the last few winters of
her life. The rooms in which she lived first, and the balcony
in which she took such pleasure, were no longer accessible,
owing to the ruinous state of one of the staircases ; but we
saw the rooms she last inhabited. Her couch, her rug, her
folding chair were there still. The walls were furnished with
a few cheap prints and a pair of tin sconces. All was very
bare and comfortless.

We asked if it was just like this when the Sitteh lived
here. The Arab Consul replied that she had " a table, and
some books." He looked himself in the last stage of consump-
tion, and spoke and moved like one that had done with life.

We were shocked at the dreariness of the place — till we
went to the window. That window, which commanded the
Nile and the western plain of Thebes, furnished the room and
made its poverty splendid.

The sun was near setting. We could distinguish the
mounds and pylons of Medinet Habu and the site of the
Ramesseum. The terraced cliffs, overtopped by the pyramidal
mountain of Bab-el-Moluk, burned crimson against a sky of
stainless blue. The footpath leading to the Valley of the
Tombs of the Kings showed like a hot white scar winding
along the face of the rocks. The river gave back the sapphire
tones of the sky. I thought I could be well content to spend
many a winter in no matter how comfortless a lodging, if only
I had that wonderful view, with its infinite beauty of light and
colour and space, and its history, and its mystery, always before
my windows.^

Another historical house is that built by Sir G. Wilkinson,
among the tombs of Sheykh Abd-el-Koorneh. Here he lived
while amassing the materials for his Manners and Qtstoms of
the Ancient Egyptians ; and here Lepsius and his company of
artists put up while at work on the western bank. Science

^ Mehemet Ali gave this house to the French, and to the French it
belonged till pulled down three years ago by Professor Maspero. [Note
to Second Edition.]

THEBES. 455

makes little impression on the native mind. No one now
remembers Champollion, or Rosellini, or Sir G. Wilkinson ;
but every Arab in Luxor cherishes the memory of Lady Dufif
Gordon in his heart of hearts, and speaks of her with blessings.

The French House was built over the roof of the sanctuary,
at the southern end of the Temple. At the northern end,
built up between the enormous sandstone columns of the Great
Colonnade, was the house of Mustapha Aga, most hospitable
and kindly of British Consuls. Mustapha Aga had travelled
in Europe, and spoke fluent Italian, English, and French. His
eldest son was Governor of Luxor ; his younger — the " little
Ahmed " whom Lady Duff Gordon delighted to educate —
having spent two yearis in England as the guest of Lord D.,
had become an accomplished Englishman.

In the round of gaiety that goes on at Luxor the British
Consulate played the leading part. Mustapha Aga entertained
all the English dahabeeyahs, and all the English dahabeeyahs
entertained Mustapha Aga. "VVe were invited to several fan-
tasias at the Consulate, and dined with Mustapha Aga at his
suburban house the evening before we left Luxor.

The appointed hour was 8.30 P.M. We arrived amid much
barking of dogs, and were received by our host in a large empty
hall surrounded by a divan. Here we remained till dinner was
announced. We were next ushered through an anteroom
where two turbaned and barefooted servants were in waiting ;
the one with a brass basin and ewer, the other with an armful of
Turkish towels. We then, each in turn, held our hands over
the basin ; had water poured on them ; and received a towel
apiece. These towels we were told to keep ; and they served
for dinner-napkins. The anteroom opened into a brilliantly-
lighted dining-room of moderate size, having in the centre a
round brass table with an upright fluted rim, like a big tray.
For each person were placed a chair, a huge block of bread, a
wooden spoon, two tumblers, and a bouquet. Plates, knives,
forks, there were none.

The party consisted of the Happy Couple, the Director of
the Luxor Telegraph Office, L., the Writer, Ahmed, and our
host.

" To-night we are all Arabs," said Mustapha Aga, as he

456 THEBES.

showed us where to sit. "We drink Nile water, and we eat
with our fingers."

So we drank Nile water ; and for the first time in our lives
we ate with our fingers. In fact, we found them exceedingly
useful.

The dinner was excellent. Without disrespect to our own
accomplished chef, or to the accomplished chefs of our various
friends upon the river, I am bound to say that it was the very
best dinner I ever ate out of Europe. Everything was hot,
quickly served, admirably dressed, and the best of its kind.
Here is the menu : —

MENU. MARCH 31, 1874

White soup : — (Turkey).

FISH.
Fried Sainak.^

ENTRl^ES
Stewed pigeons. Spinach and rice.

ROAST.
Dall.2

ENTREES.
Kebobs ^ of mutton. Kebobs of lambs' kidneys.

Tomatoes with rice. Kuftah.*

ROAST.
Turkey, with cucumber sauce

ENTREE.

Pilaff^ of rice.

SECOND COURSE.

Mish-mish.® Rus Blebban.^

Kundfah.' Totleh.9

1 Samak: a large flat fish, rather like a brill.

* Ball : roast shoulder of lamb.

' Kebobs : small lumps of meat grilled on skewers.

* Kuftah : broiled mutton.

'' Pilaff: boiled rice, mixed with a little butter, and seasoned with salt ani peppci.

" Mish-mish : apricots (preserved).

7 Kundfah: a rich pudding made of rice, almonds, cream, cinnamon, etc. etc.

8 Rus Blebban : rice cream.

* Totleh : sweet jelly, encrusted with blanched almonds.

THEBES. 457

These dishes were placed one at a time in the middle of
the table, and rapidly changed. Each dipped his own spoon
in the soup, dived into the stew, and pulled off pieces of fish or
lamb with his fingers. Having no plates, we made plates of
our bread. Meanwhile Mustapha Aga, like an attentive host,
tore off an especially choice morsel now and then, and handed
it to one or other of his guests.

To eat gracefully with one's fingers is a fine art ; to carve
with them skilfully is a science. None of us, I think, will soon
forget the wonderful way in which our host attacked and van-
quished the turkey — a solid colossus weighing twenty lbs., and
roasted to perfection. Half-rising, he turned back his cuff,
poised his wrist, and, driving his forefinger and thumb deep
into the breast, brought out a long, stringy, smoking fragment,
which he deposited on the plate of the Writer. Thus begun,
the turkey went round the table amid peals of laughter, and
was punished by each in turn. The pilaff which followed is
always the last dish served at an Egyptian or Turkish dinner.
After this, our spoons were changed and the sweets were put
upon the table. The drinks throughout were plain water, rice-
water, and lemonade. Some native musicians played in the
anteroom during dinner ; and when we rose from the table, we
washed our hands as before.

We now returned to the large hall, and not being accom-
plished in the art and mystery of sitting cross-legged, curled
ourselves up on the divans as best we could. The Writer was
conducted by Mustapha Aga to the corner seat at the upper
end of the room, where he said the Princess of Wales had sat
when their Royal Highnesses dined with him the year before.
We were then served with pipes and coffee. The gentlemen
smoked chibouques and cigarettes, while for us there were
gorgeous rose-water narghilehs with long flexible tubes and
amber mouthpieces. L. had the Princess's pipe, and smoked it
very cleverly all the evening.

By and by came the Governor, the Kadi of Luxor, the
Prussian Consul and his son, and some three or four grave-
looking merchants in rich silk robes and ample turbans.
Meanwhile the band — two fiddles, a tambourine, and a dara-
bukkeh — played at intervals at the lower end of the hall ; pipes,

458 THEBES.

coffee, and lemonade went continually round ; and the entertain-
ment wound up, as native entertainments always do wind up at
Luxor, with a performance of Ghawazi.

We had already seen these dancers at two previous fan-
tasias, and we admired them no more the third time than the
first. They wore baggy Turkish trowsers, loose gowns of gaudy
pattern, and a profusion of jewellery. The premiere danseuse
was a fine woman and rather handsome ; but in the " belle " of
the company, a thick-lipped Nubian, we could discover no charm
whatever. The performances of the Ghawazi — which are very
ungraceful and almost wholly pantomimic — have been too often
described to need description here. Only once, indeed, did we
see them perform an actual dance ; and then they swam lightly
to and fro, clattering their castanets, crossing and re-crossing,
and bounding every now and then down the whole length of
the room. This dance, we were told, was of unknown antiquity.
They sang occasionally ; but their voices were harsh and their
melodies inharmonious.

There was present, however, one native performer whom we
had already heard many times, and of whose skill we never
tired. This was the leader of the little band — an old man who
played the Kemengeh,^ or cocoa-nut fiddle. A more unpromising
instrument than the Kemengeh it would be difficult to conceive ;
yet our old Arab contrived to make it discourse most eloquent
music. His solos consisted of plaintive airs and extemporised
variations, embroidered with difficult, and sometimes extrava-
gant, cadenzas. He always began sedately, but warmed to his
work as he went on ; seeming at last to forget everything but
his own delight in his own music. At such times one could
see that he was weaving some romance in his thoughts, and
translating it into sounds. As the strings throbbed under his
fingers, the whole man became inspired ; and more than once
when, in shower after shower of keen despairing notes, he had
described the wildest anguish of passion, I have observed his
colour change and his hand tremble.

1 The kemengeh is a kind of small two-stringed fiddle, the body of which
is made of half a cocoa-nut shell. It has a very long neck, and a long foot
that rests upon the ground, like the foot of a violoncello ; and it is played
with a bow about a yard in length The strings are of twisted horsehair.

THEBES. 459

Although we heard him repeatedly, and engaged him more
than once when we had friends to dinner, I am sorry to say
that I forget the name of this really great artist. He is, how-
ever celebrated throughout the Thebaid, and is constantly
summoned to Erment, Esneh, Keneh, Girgeh, and other large
towns, to perform at private entertainments.

While at Luxor, we went one Sunday morning to the
Coptic church— a large building at the northern extremity of
the village. Church, schools, and Bishop's house, are here
grouped under one roof and enclosed in a courtyard; for
Luxor is the centre of one of the twelve sees into which Coptic

Egypt is divided.

The church, which has been rebuilt of late years, is con-
structed of sun-dried brick, having a small apse towards the
east, and at the lower or western end a screened atrium for
the women. The centre aisle is perhaps thirty feet in width ;
the side-aisles, if aisles they can be called, being thickly planted
with stone pillars supporting round arches. These pillars came
from Karnak, and were the gift of the Khedive. They have
lotus-bud capitals, and measure about fifteen feet high in the
shaft At the upper end of the nave, some eighteen or twenty
feet in advance of the apse, there stands a very beautiful screen
inlaid m the old Coptic style with cedar, ebony, rosewood,
ivory, and mother-of-pearl. This screen is the pride of the
church. Through the opening in the centre, one looks straight
into the little waggon-roofed apse, which contains a small table
and a suspended lamp, and is as dark as the sanctuary of an
Egyptian temple. The reading-desk, like a rickety office
stool, faces the congregation ; and just inside the screen stands
the Bishop's chair. Upon this plan, which closely resembles
the plan of the first cathedral of St. Peter at Rome, most
Coptic churches are built. They vary chiefly in the number
of apses, some having as many as five. The atrium generally
contains a large tank, called the Epiphany tank, into which m
memory of the baptism of our Lord, the men plunge at their

festival of El Ghit^s. , ^ i

Young Todroos, the son of the Prussian Consul, conducted

us to the church. We went in at about eleven o'clock and

witnessed the end of the service, which had then been going

46o THEBES.

on since daybreak. The atrium was crowded with women and
children, and the side-aisles with men of the poorer sort. A
few groups of better dressed Copts were gathered near the
screen listening to a black-robed deacon, who stood reading
at the reading desk with a lighted taper in his left hand. A
priest in a white vestment embroidered on the breast and hood
with a red Maltese cross, was squatting on his heels at the
entrance to the adytum. The Bishop, all in black with a black
turban, sat with his back to the congregation.

Every face was turned upon us when we came in. The
reader paused. The white-robed priest got up. Even the
Bishop looked round. Presently a couple of acolytes, each
carrying two cane-bottomed chairs, came bustling down the
nave ; and, unceremoniously driving away all who were standing
near, placed us in a row across the middle of the church.
This interruption over, the reading was resumed.

We now observed with some surprise that every word of
the lessons as they were read in Coptic was translated, viva
voce, into Arabic by a youth in a surplice, who stood against
the screen facing the congregation. He had no book, but
went on fluently enough, following close upon the voice of the
reader. This, we were told, was done only during the reading
of the lessons, the Gospel, and the Lord's Prayer. The rest
of the service is performed without translation ; and, the Coptic
being a dead language, is consequently unintelligible to the
people.

When the reading of the Gospel was over, the deacon
retired. The priest then came forward and made a sign to
the school children, who ran up noisily from all parts of the
church, and joined with the choristers in a wild kind of chant.
It seemed to us that this chant concluded the first part of the
service.

The second part closely resembled the celebration of mass.
The priest came to the door of the screen ; looked at the
congregation ; folded his hands palm to palm ; went up to the
threshold of the apse, and began reciting what sounded like a
litany. He then uncovered the sacred vessels, which till now
had been concealed under two blue cotton handkerchiefs, and,
turning, shook the handkerchiefs towards the people. He then

THEBES. 461

consecrated the wine and wafer ; elevated the host ; and him-
self partook of the Eucharist in both elements. A little bell
was rung during the consecration and again at the elevation.
The people, meanwhile, stood very reverently, with their heads
bent ; but no one knelt during any part of the service. After
this, the officiating priest washed his hands in a brass basin ;
and the deacon — who was also the schoolmaster — came round
the church holding up his scarf, which was heaped full of little
cakes of unleavened bread. These he distributed to all present.
An acolyte followed with a plate, and collected the offerings of
the congregation.

We now thought the service was over ; but there remained
four wee, crumpled, brown mites of babies to be christened.
These small Copts were carried up the church by four acolytes,
followed by four anxious fathers. The priest then muttered a
short prayer ; crossed the babies with water from the basin in
which he had washed his hands ; drank the water ; wiped the
basin out with a piece of bread ; ate the bread ; and dismissed
the little newly-made Christians with a hasty blessing.

Finally, the Bishop — who had taken no part in the service,
nor even partaken of the Eucharist — came down from his
chair, and stood before the altar to bless the congregation.
Hereupon all the men and boys ranged themselves in single
file and trooped through between the screen and the apse,
crowding in at one side and out at the other ; each being
touched by the Bishop on his cheek, as he went by. If they
lagged, the Bishop clapped his hands impatiently, and the
schoolmaster drove them through faster. When there were no
more to come (the women and little girls, be it observed,
coming in for no share of this benediction), the priest took off
his vestments and laid them in a heap on the altar ; the deacon
distributed a basketful of blessed cakes among the poor of the
congregation ; and the Bishop walked down the nave, eating a
cake and giving a bit here and there to the best dressed Copts
as he went along. So ended this interesting and curious
service, which I have described thus minutely for the reason
that it represents, with probably but little change, the earliest
ceremonial of Christian worship in Egypt.^

1 "The Copts are Christians of the sect called Jacobites, Eutychians,

462 THEBES.

Before leaving, we asked permission to look at the books
from which the service had been read. They were all very old
and dilapidated. The New Testament, however, was in better
condition than the rest, and was beautifully written upon
vellum, in red and black ink. The Coptic, of course, looks
like Greek to the eyes of the uninitiated ; but some of the
illuminated capitals struck us as bearing a marked resemblance
to certain of the more familiar hieroglyphic characters.

While we were examining the books, the Bishop sent his
servant to invite us to pay him a visit. We accordingly
followed the man up an outer flight of wooden steps at one
corner of the courtyard, and were shown into a large room
built partly over the church. Here we found the Bishop —
handsome, plump, dignified, with soft brown eyes, and a slightly
grizzled beard — seated cross-legged on a divan, and smoking
his chibouque. On a table in the middle of the room stood
two or three blue and white bottles of Oriental porcelain. The
windows, which were sashless and very large, looked over to
Karnak. The sparrows flew in and out as they listed.

The Bishop received us very amiably, and the proceedings
opened as usual with pipes and coffee. The conversation which
followed consisted chiefly of questions on our part, and of
answers on his. We asked the extent of his diocese, and
learned that it reached from Assuan on the south to Keneh on
the north. The revenue of the see, he said, was wholly derived
from endowments in land. He estimated the number of Copts
in Luxor at 2000, being two-thirds of the entire population.
The church was built and decorated in the time of his pre-
decessor. He had himself been Bishop here for rather more
than four years. We then spoke of the service we had just
witnessed, and of the books we had seen. I showed him my

Monophysites, and Monothelites, whose creed was condemned by the
Council of Chalcedon in the reign of the Emperor Marcian. They received
the appellation of 'Jacobites,' by which they are generally known, from
Jacobus Baradasus, a Syrian, who was a chief propagator of the Eutychian
doctrines. . . . The religious orders of the Coptic Church consist of a
patriarch, a metropolitan of the Abyssinians, bishops, arch-priests, priests,
deacons, and monks. In Abyssinia, Jacobite Christianity is still the
prevailing religion." See The Modern Egyptians; by E. W. Lank.
Supplement i, p. 531. London: i860.

THEBES. 46^

prayer-book, which he examined with much curiosity. I
explained the differences indicated by the black and the rubri-
cated matter, and pointed out the parts that were sung. He
was, however, more interested in the outside than in the
contents, and tapped the binding once or twice, to see if it
were leather or wood. As for the gilt corners and clasp, he
undoubtedly took them for solid gold.

The conversation next turned upon Coptic ; the Idle Man
asking him if he believed it to be the tongue actually spoken
by the ancient Egyptians.

To this he replied : —

"Yes, undoubtedly. What else should it be?"

The Idle Man hereupon suggested that it seemed to him,
from what he had just seen of the church books, as if it might
be a corrupt form of Byzantine Greek.

The Bishop shook his head.

" The . Coptic is a distinct language," he said. " Eight
Greek letters were added to the Coptic alphabet upon the
introduction of Christianity into Egypt ; and since that time
many Greek words have been imported into the Coptic vocabu-
lary ; but the main body of the tongue is Coptic, purely ; and
it has no radical affinity whatever with the Greek." ^

1 The Bishop was for the most part right. The Coptic is the ancient
Egyptian language (that is to say, it is late and somewhat corrupt Egyptian)
written in Greek characters instead of in hieroglyphs. For the abolition of
the ancient writing was, next to the aboliiion of the images of the Gods, one
of the first great objects of the early Church in Egypt. Unable to uproot
and destroy the language of a great nation, the Christian Fathers took care
so to reclothe it that every trace of the old symbolism should disappear and
be forgotten. Already, in the time of Clement of Alexandria (a.d. 211), the
hieroglyphic style had become obsolete. The secret of reading hieroglyphs,
however, was not lost till the time of the fall of the Eastern Empire. How
the lost key was recovered by Champollion is told in a quotation from
Mariette Bey, in the footnote to p. 211, chapter xii. of this book. Of the
relation of Coptic to Egyptian, Champollion says : " La langue e'gyptienne
antique ne differait en rien de la langue appelee vulgairement Copte ou
Cophte. . . . Les mots egyptiens Merits en caracteres hieroglyphiques sur
les monuments les plus anciens de Thebes, et en caracteres Grecs dans les
livres Coptes, ne different en general que par Tabsence de certaines voyelles
mediales omises, selon la mdthode orientale, dans I'orthographe primitive."
— Grammaire Egyptienne, p. 18.

The Bishop, though perfectly right in stating that Coptic and Egyptian

464 THEBES.

This was the longest speech we heard him make, and he
delivered it with some emphasis.

I then asked him if the Coptic was in all respects a dead
language ; to which he replied that many Coptic words, such
as the names of the months and of certain festivals, were still
in daily use. This, however, was not quite what I meant ; so
I put the question in another form, and asked if he thought
any fragments of the tongue yet survived among the peasantry.

He pondered a moment before replying.

" That," he said, " is a question to which it is difficult to
give a precise answer, but I think you might yet find, in some
of the remoter villages, an old man here and there who would
understand it a little."

I thought this a very interesting reply to a very interesting
question.

After sitting about half an hour we rose and took leave.
The Bishop shook hands with us all round, and, but that we
protested against it, would have accompanied us to the head of
the stairs.

This interview was altogether very pleasant. The Copts
are said to be sullen in manner, and so bigoted that even a
Moslem is less an object of dislike to them than a Christian of
any other denomination. However this may be, we saw nothing
of it. We experienced, on the contrary, many acts of civility
from the Copts with whom we were brought into communica-
tion. No traveller in Egypt should, I think, omit being present
at a service in a Coptic church. For a Coptic church is now
the only place in which one may hear the last utterances of
that far-off race with whose pursuits and pleasures the tomb-
paintings make us so familiar. We know that great changes
have come over the language since it was spoken by Rameses

were one, and that the Coptic was a distinct language having no affinity
with the Greek, was, however, entirely wrong in that part of his explanation
which related to the alphabet. So far from eight Greek letters having been
added to the Coptic alphabet upon the introduction of Christianity into
Egypt, there was no such thing as a Coptic alphabet previous to that time.
The Coptic alphabet is the Greek alphabet as imposed upon Egypt by the
Fathers of the early Greek Church ; and that alphabet being found insuffi-
cient to convey all the sounds of the Egyptian tongue, eight new characters
were borrowed from the demotic to supplement the deficiency.

THEBES. 465

the Great and written by Pentaur, We know that the Coptic
of to-day bears to the Egyptian of the Pharaohs some such
resemblance, perhaps, as the English of Macaulay bears to the
English of Chaucer. Yet it is at bottom the tongue of old
Egypt, and it is something to hear the last lingering echoes of
that ancient speech read by the undoubted descendants of the
Egyptian people. In another fifty years or so, the Coptic will
in all probability be superseded by the Arabic in the services
of this Church ; and then the very tradition of its pronunciation
will be lost. The Copts themselves, it is said, are fast going
over to the dominant faith. Perhaps by the time our own
descendants are counting the two thousandth anniversary of
,the Christian era, both Copts and Coptic will be extinct in
Egypt.

A day or two after this we dropped down to Karnak, where
we remained till the end of the week, and on the following
Sunday we resumed our downward voyage.

If the universe of literature was unconditioned, and the
present book was independent of time and space, I would write
another chapter here about Karnak. But Karnak, to be fairly
dealt by, would ask, not a chapter, but a volume. So, having
already told something of the impression first made upon us by
that wilderness of wonders, I will sav no more.

2 H

CHAPTER XXII.

ABYDUS AND CAIRO.

Our last weeks on the Nile weot bv like one long, lazy,
summer's day. Events now were few. We had out -stayed
all our fellow-travellers. Even the faithful Bagstones had long
since vanished northwards ; and the Philae was the last daha-
beeyah of the year. Of the great sights of the river, we had
only Abydus and Beni Hassan left to see ; while for minor
excursions, daily walks, and explorations by the way, we had
little energy left. For the thermometer was rising higher and
the Nile was falling lower every day ; and we should have been
more than mortal, if we had not felt the languid influences of
the glowing Egyptian Spring.

The natives call it spring ; but to our northern fancy it is
spring, summer, and autumn in one. Of the splendour of the
skies, of the lavish bounty of the soil at this season, only those
who have lingered late in the land can form any conception.
There is a breadth of repose now about the landscape which it
has never worn before. The winter green of the palms is
fading fast. The harvests are ripening; the pigeons are pairing ;
the time of the singing of birds is come. There is just enough
south wind most days to keep the boat straight, and the sail
from flapping. The heat is great ; yet it is a heat which, up
to a certain point, one can enjoy. The men p^y their oars by
night ; and sleep under their benches, or croon old songs and
tell stories among themselves, by day. But for the thin canopy
of smoke that hangs over the villages, one would fancy now
that those clusters of mud- huts were all deserted. Not a

ABYDUS AND CAIRO. 467

human being is to be seen on the banks when the sun is high.
The buffaloes stand up to their necks in the shallows. The
donkeys huddle together wherever there is shade. The very
dogs have given up barking, and lie asleep under the walls.

The whole face of the country, and even of the Nile, is
wonderfully changed since we first passed this way. The land,
then newly squared off like a gigantic chess-board and inter-
sected by thousands of little channels, is now one sea of
yellowing grain. The river is become a labyrinth of sand-
banks, some large, some small ; some just beginning to thrust
their heads above water ; others so long that they divide the
river for a mile or more at a stretch. Reis Hassan spends half
his life at the prow, poling for shallows ; and when we thread
our way down one of these sandy straits, it is for all the world
like a bit of the Suez Canal. The banks, too, are twice as
steep as they were when we went up. The lentil patches,
which then blossomed on the slope next the water's edge, now
lie far back on the top of a steep brown ridge, at the foot of
which stretches a moist flat planted with water-melons. Each
melon-plant is protected from the sun by a tiny gable-roof of
palm-thatch.

Meanwhile, the river being low and the banks high, we
unfortunates benefit scarcely at all by the faint breezes that
now and then ruffle the barley. Day by day, the thermometer
(which hangs in the coolest corner of the saloon) creeps up
higher and higher, working its way by degrees to above 99°;
but never succeeding in getting up quite to 100°. We, how-
ever, living in semi -darkness, with closed jalousies, and wet
sails hung round the sides of the dahabeeyah, and wet towels
hung up in our cabins, find 99° quite warm enough to be
pleasant. The upper deck is of course well deluged several
times a day ; but even so, it is difficult to keep the timbers
from starting. Meanwhile L. and the Idle Man devote their
leisure to killing flies, keeping the towels wet, and sprinkling
the floors.

Our progress all this time is of the slowest. The men
cannot row by day ; and at night the sandbanks so hedge us
in with dangers, that the only possible way by which we can
make a few miles between sunset and sunrise is by sheer hard

468 ABYDUS AND CAIRO.

punting. Now and then we come to a clear channel, and
sometimes we get an hour or two of sweet south breeze ; but
these flashes of good luck are few and far between.

In such wise, and in such a temperature, we found ourselves
becalmed one morning within six miles of Denderah. Not even
L. could be induced to take a six-mile donkey-ride that day
in the sun. The Writer, however, ordered out her sketching-
tent and paid a last visit to the Temple ; which, seen amid the
ripening splendour of miles of barley, looked gloomier, and
grander, and more solitary than ever.

Two or three days later, we came within reach of Abydus.
Our proper course would have been to push on to Bellianeh,
which is one of the recognised starting-points for Abydus.
But an unlucky sandbank barred the way ; so we moored
instead at Samata, a village about two miles nearer to the
southward. Here our dragoman requisitioned the inhabitants
for donkeys. As it happened, the harvest had begun in the
neighbourhood and all the beasts of burden were at work, so
that it was near midday before we succeeded in getting
together the three or four wretched little brutes with which
we finally started. Not one of these steeds had ever before
carried a ridei. We had a frightful time with them. My
donkey bolted about every five minutes. L.'s snarled like a
camel and showed its teeth like a dog. The Idle Man's, bent
on flattening its rider, lay down and rolled at short intervals.
In this exciting fashion, we somehow or another accomplished
the seven miles that separate Samata from Abydus.

Skirting some palm-groves and crossing the dry bed of a
canal, we came out upon a vast plain, level as a lake, islanded
here and there with villages, and presenting one undulating
surface of bearded corn. This plain — the plain of ancient
Thinis — runs parallel with the Nile, like the plain of Thebes,
and is bounded to the westward by a range of flat -topped
mountains. The distance between the river and the mountains
however, is here much greater than at Thebes, being full six
miles ; while to north and south the view ends only with the
horizon.

Our way lies at first by a bridle-track through the thick ot
the barley: then falls into the Bellianeh road — a raised causeway

ABYDUS AND CAIRO. 469

embanked some twenty feet above the plain. Along this road,
the country folk are coming and going. In the cleared spaces
where the maize has been cut, little encampments of straw huts
have sprung up. Yonder, steering their way by unseen paths,
go strings of camels ; their gawky necks and humped backs
undulating above the surface of the corn, like galleys with
fantastic prows upon a sea of rippling green. The pigeons fly
in great clouds from village to village. The larks are singing
and circling madly in the clear depths overhead. The bee-
eaters flash like live emeralds across our path. The hoopoes
strut by the wayside. A^' rather more than half-way across
the plain, we come into the midst of the harvest. Here the
brown reapers, barelegged and naked to the waist, are at work
with their sickles, just as they are pictured in the tomb of Tih.
The women and children follow, gleaning, at the heels of those
who bind the sheaves. The Sheykh in his black robe and
scarlet slippers rides to and fro upon his ass, like Boaz among
his people. As the sheaves are bound up, the camels carry
them homeward. A camel-load is fourteen sheaves ; seven to
each side of the hump. A little farther, and the oxen, yoked
two and two, are ploughing up the stubble. In a day or two,
the land will be sown with millet, indigo, or cotton, to be
gathered in once more before the coming of the inundation.

Meanwhile, as the plain lengthens behind us and the
distance grows less between ourselves and the mountains, we
see a line of huge irregular mounds reaching for apparently a
couple of miles or more along the foot of the cliffs. From
afar off, the mounds look as if crowned by majestic ruins ; but
as we draw nearer, these outlines resolve themselves into the
village of Arabat-el-Madfuneh, which stands upon part of
the mounds of Abydus. And now we come to the end of
the cultivated plain— that strange line of demarcation where the
inundation stops and the desert begins. Of actual desert, how-
ever, there is here but a narrow strip, forming a first step, as it
were, above the alluvial plain. Next comes the artificial plat-
form, about a quarter of a mile in depth, on which stands the
modern village ; and next again, towering up sheer and steep,
the great wall of limestone precipice. The village is extensive,
and the houses, built in a rustic Arabesque, tell of a well-to-do

470 ADYDUS AND CAIRO.

population. Arched gateways ornamented with black, white,
and red bricks, windows of turned lattice -work, and pigeon-
towers in courses of pots and bricks, give a singular picturesque-
ness to the place ; while the slope down to the desert is
covered with shrubberies and palms. Below these hanging
gardens, on the edge of the desert, lies the cut corn in piles of
sheaves. Here the camels are lying down to be unladen.
Yonder the oxen are already treading out the grain, or chop-
ping the straw by means of a curious sledge-like machine set
with revolving rows of circular knives.^ Meanwhile, fluttering
from heap to heap, settling on the sheaves, feeding unmolested
in the very midst of the threshing floors, strutting all over the
margin of. the desert, trailing their wings, ruffling their plumes,
cooing, curtseying, kissing, courting, filling the air with sweet
sounds and setting the whole lovely idyll to a pastoral
symphony of their own composing, are thousands and tens of
thousands of pigeons.^

Now our path turns aside and we thread our way among
the houses, noticing here a sculptured block built into a mud
wall — yonder, beside a dried -up well, a broken alabaster
sarcophagus — farther on, a granite column still erect, in the
midst of a palm -garden. And now, the village being left
behind, we find ourselves at the foot of a great hill of newly
excavated rubbish, from the top of which we presently look
down into a kind of crater, and see the Great Temple of Abydus
at our feet.

It was now nearly three o'clock ; so, having seen what we
could in the time, and having before us a long ride through a
strange country, we left again at six. I will not presume to
describe the Temples of Abydus — one of which is so ruined as

1 This machine is called the Noreg.

2 The number of pigeons kept by the Egyptian fellahin is incredible.
Mr. Zincke says on this subject that " the number of domestic pigeons in
Egypt must be several times as great as the population," and suggests that
if the people kept pigs, they would keep less pigeons. But it is not as
food chiefly that the pigeons are encouraged. They are bred and let live
in such ruinous numbers for the sake of the manure they deposit on the
land. M. About has forcibly demonstrated the error of this calculation.
He shows that the pigeons do thirty million francs' worth of damage to the
crops in excess of any benefit they may confer upon the soil.

ABYDUS AND CAIRO. 471

to be almost unintelligible, and the other so singularly planned
and so obscure in its general purport, as to be a standing puzzle
to archaeologists — after a short visit of three hours. Enough
if I sketch briefly what I saw but cursorily.

Buried as it is, Abydus,^ even under its mounds, is a place
of profound historical interest. At a time so remote that it
precedes all written record of Egyptian story, there existed a
little way to the northward of this site a city called Teni.^ We
know not to what aboriginal community of prehistoric Egypt
this city belonged; but here, presumedly, the men of Kem^ built
their first Temple, evolved their first notions of art, and groped
their way to an alphabet which in its origin was probably a mere
picture-writing, like the picture-writing of Mexico. Hence, too,
came a man named Mena, whose cartouche from immemorial
time has stood first in the long list of Egyptian Pharaohs. Of
Mena,* a shadowy figure hovering on the border-land of history
and tradition, we know only that he was the first primitive

1 The Arabic name of the modern village, Arabdt-el-Madfuneh, means
literally Arabat the Buried.

2 Tent, or more probably Tini, called by the Greeks This or Thmis.
It was the capital of the Vlllth Nome. " Quoique nous ayons tr^s-peu
de chose k rapporter sur I'histoire de la ville de Ten! qui k la basse epoque
sous la domination romaine, n'etait connue que par ses teinturiers en
pourpre, elle doit avoir joui d'une tr^s grande renommde chez les anciens
Egyptiens. Encore au temps du XIX^">« dynastie les plus hauts fonction-
naires de sang royal etaient distingues par le titre de ' Princes de Teni.' "
—Hist. d'Egypte. Brugsch, vol. i. chap. v. p. 29 ; Leipzig, 1874.

Note to Second Edition. — " Des monuments trouvds il y a deux ans,
me portent a croire que Thini etait situde assez loin k I'Est au village actuel
de Aoulad-Yahia." Letter of Prof. G. Maspero to the author, April 1878.

3 The ancient name of Egypt was Kern, Khejn, or Katn, signifying
Black, or the Black Land ; in allusion to the colour of the soil.

4 " Mena, tel que nous le presente la tradition, est le type le plus
complet du m'onarque egyptien. II est k la fois constructeur et legislateur :
il fonde le grande temple de Phtah k Memphis et regie le culte des dieux.
II est guerrier, et conduit les expeditions hors de ses fronti^res."— //zj/.
Ancienne des Peupies de V Orient. G. Maspero. Chap. 11. p. 55 :

Paris, 1876. ,.,..,

"N'oublions pas qu'avant Men^s I'Egypte etait divisee en petits
royaumes independants que Menfes r^unit le premier sous un sceptre unique.
II n'est pas impossible que des monuments de cette antique penode de
I'histoire Egyptienne subsistent cx\cort."—Itineraire de la Haute Egypte.
A. Marieite Bey. Avant Propos, p. 40. Alexandrie, 1872.

472 A B YD US AND CAIRO.

chieftain who took the title of King of Upper and Lower
Egypt, and that he went northward and founded Memphis.
Not, however, till after some centuries was the seat of govern-
ment removed to the new city. Teni — the supposed burial-
place of Osiris — then lost its political importance ; but con-
tinued to be for long ages the Holy City of Egypt.

In the meanwhile, Abydus had sprung up close to Teni.
Abydus, however, though an important city, was never the
capital of Egypt. The seat of power shifted strangely with
different dynasties, being established now in the Delta, now
at Thebes, now at Elephantine ; but having once departed
from the site which, by reason of its central position and the
unbounded fertility of its neighbourhood, was above all others
best fitted to play this great part in the history of the country,
it never again returned to the point from which it had started.
That point, however, was unquestionably the centre from which
the great Egyptian people departed upon its wonderful career.
Here was the nursery of its strength. Hence it derived its
proud title to an unmixed autochthonous descent. For no
greater proof of the native origin of the race can be adduced
than the position which their first city occupies upon the map
of Egypt That any tribe of colonists should have made
straight for the heart of the country and there have established
themselves in the midst of barbarous and probably hostile
aborigines, is evidently out of the question. It is, on the other
hand, equally clear that if Egypt had been colonised from
Asia or Ethiopia, the strangers would on the one hand have
founded their earliest settlement in the neighbourhood of the
Isthmus ; or on the other, have halted first among the then
well-watered plains of Nubia.^ But the Egyptians started
from the fertile heart of their own mother country, and began
by being great at home.

Abydus and Teni, planted on the same platform of desert,
were probably united at one time by a straggling suburb in-

* See Opening Address of Professor R. OwEN, C.B., etc. etc., Report
of Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Orientalists^
Ethnological Sectioji : London, 1874. Also a paper on " The Ethnology
of Egypt," by the same, published in the fotirnal of the Anthropological
Institute, vol. iv. No. i, p. 246: Lond. 1874.

ABYDUS AND CAIRO. 473

habited by the embalmers and other tradesfolk concerned in
the business of death and burial. A chain of mounds, excavated
only where the Temples were situated, now stands to us for
the famous city of Abydus. An ancient crude-brick enclosure
and an artificial tumulus mark the site of Teni. The Temples
and the tumulus, divided by the now exhausted necropolis,
are about as distant from one another as Medinet Habu and
the Ramesseum.

There must have been many older Temples at Abydus
than these which we now see, one of which was built by Seti I,
and the other by Rameses II. Or possibly, as in so many
instances, the more ancient buildings were pulled down and
rebuilt. Be this as it may, the Temple of Seti, as regards its
sculptured decorations, is one of the most beautiful of Egyptian
ruins ; and as regards its plan, is one of the most singular.
A row of square limestone piers, which must once have sup-
ported an architrave, are now all that remains of the facade.
Immediately behind these comes a portico of twenty -four
columns leading by seven entrances to a hall of thirty-six
columns. This hall again opens into seven parallel sanctuaries,
behind which lie another hall of columns and a number of
small chambers. So much of the building seems to be homo-
geneous. Adjoining this block, however, and leading from it
by doorways at the southern end of the great hall, come
several more halls and chambers connected by corridors, and
conducting apparently to more chambers not yet excavated.
All these piers, columns, halls, and passages, and all the seven
sanctuaries,^ are most delicately sculptured and brilliantly
coloured.

1 M. Maiiette, in his great work on the excavations at Abydus,
observes that these seven vaulted sanctuaries resemble sarcophagi of
the form most commonly in use : namely, oblong boxes with vaulted lids.
Two sarcophagi of this shape are shown in cut 496 of Sir G. Wilkinson's
second volume (see figures i and 6), A Popular Account of the Ancient
Egyptians, vol. ii. chap. x. ; Lond. 1871. Of the uses and purport of the
temple, he also says — " What do we know of the idee mere that presided
at its construction ? What was done'in it ? Is it consecrated to a single
divinity, who would be Osiris ; or to seven Gods, who would be the Seven
Gods of the seven vaulted chambers ; or to the nine divinities enumerated
in the lists of deities dispersed in various parts of the temple ? • . • One
leaves the temple in despair, not at being unable to make out its secret

474 ABYDUS AND CAIRO.

There is so far a family resemblance between Temples of
the same style and period, that after a little experience one can
generally guess before crossing the threshold of a fresh building,
what one is likely to see in the way of sculptures within. But
almost every subject in the Temple of Seti at Abydus is new
and strange. All the Gods of the Egyptian pantheon seem to
have been worshipped here, and to have had each his separate
shrine. The walls are covered with paintings of these shrines
and their occupants ; while before each the King is represented
performing some act of adoration. A huge blue frog, a grey-
hound, a double-headed goose, a human-bodied creature with
a Nilometer for its head,^ and many more than I can now
remember, are thus depicted. The royal offerings, too, though
incense and necklaces and pectoral ornaments abound, are for
the most part of a kind that we have not seen before. In one

from the inscriptions, but on finding that its secret has been kept for
itself alone, and not trusted to the inscriptions." — Description des Foiiilles
d'Abydos. Mariette Bey. Paris, 1869.

" Les sept chambres voutees du grand temple d'Abydos sont relatifs
aux ceremonies que le roi devait y cdlebrer successivement. Le roi se
pr^sentait au cote droit de la porte, parcourait la salle dans tout son
pourtour et sortait par le cot^ gauche. Des statues etaient disposees dans
la chambre. Le roi ouvrait la porte ou naos oii elles Etaient enfermdes.
D^s que la statue apparaissait k ses yeux il lui offrait I'encens, il enlevait
le vetement qui la couvrait, il lui imposait les mains, il la parfumait, il
la recouvrait de son vetement," etc. etc. — Mariette Bey. Ititieraire de
la Haute Egypte : Avant Propos, p. 62. Alex. 1872.

There is at the upper end of each of these seven sanctuaries a singular
kind of false door, or recess, conceived in a style of ornament more Indian
than Egyptian, the cutting being curiously square, deep, and massive, the
surface of the relief-work flattened, and the whole evidently intended to
produce its effect by depths of shadow in the incised portions rather than
by sculpturesque relief. These recesses, or imitation doors, may have
been designed to serve as backgrounds to statues, but are not deep enough
for niches. There is a precisely similar recess sculptured on one of the
walls of the westernmost chamber in the Temple of Gournah.

^ These are all representations of minor Gods commonly figured in the
funereal papyri, but very rarely seen in the Temple sculptures. The frog
Goddess, for instance, is Hek, and symbolises eternity. She is a very
ancient divinity, traces of her being found in monuments of the Vth
Dynasty. The goose-headed God is Seb, another very old God. The
object called the Nilometer was a religious emblem signifying stability, and
probably stands in this connection as only a deified symbol

ABYDUS AND CAIRO. 475

place the King presents to Isis a column with four capitals,
having on the top capital a globe and two asps surmounted by
a pair of ostrich feathers.

The centre sanctuary of the seven appears to be dedicated
to Khem, who seems to be here, as in the great Temple of Seti
at Karnak, the presiding divinity. In this principal sanctuary,
which is resplendent with colour and in marvellous preservation,
we especially observed a portrait of Rameses IlMn the act of
opening the door of a shrine by means of a golden key formed
like a human hand and arm. The lock seems to consist of a
number of bolts of unequal length, each of which is pushed
back in turn by means of the forefinger of the little hand.
This, doubtless, gives a correct representation of the kind of
locks in use at that time.

It was in a corridor opening out from the great hall in
this Temple that Mariette discovered that precious sculpture
known as the New Tablet of Abydus. In this tableau,
Seti I and Rameses II are seen, the one offering incense,
the other reciting a hymn of praise, to the manes of seventy-
six Pharaohs,^ beginning with Mena, and ending with Seti
himself To our great disappointment — though one cannot
but acquiesce in the necessity for precaution — we found the

1 Rameses 11 is here shown with the side-lock of youth. This Temple,
founded by Seti I, was carried on through the time when Rameses the
prince was associated with his father upon the throne, and was completed
by Rameses the King, after the death of Seti I. The building is strictly
coeval in date and parallel in style with the Temple of Gournah and the
Speos of Bayt-el-Welly.

^ These seventy-six Pharaohs (represented by their cartouches) were
probably either princes born of families originally from Abydus, or were
sovereigns who had acquired a special title to veneration at this place on
account of monuments or pious foundations presented by them to the holy
city. A similar tablet, erected apparently on the same principles though
not altogether to the same kings, was placed by Thothmes III in a side
chamber of the Great Temple at Karnak, and is now in the Louvre.

The great value of the present monument consists in its chronological
arrangement. It is also of most beautiful execution, and in perfect pre-
servadon. " Comme perfection de gravure, comme conservation, comma
etendue, il est peu de monuments qui la depassent." See La Nouvelle
Table d'Abydos, par A. Mariette Bey : R^vue Arch. vol. vii. Nouvelle
Serie, p. 98. This volume of the Review also contains an engraving in
outline of the Tablet.

476 ABYDUS AND CAIRO.

entrance to this corridor closed and mounded up. A ragged
old Arab who haunts the Temple in the character of custode,
told us that the tablet could now only be seen by special
permission.

We seemed to have been here about half an hour when the
guide came to warn us of approaching evening. We had yet
the site and the great Tumulus of Teni to see ; the tumulus
being distant about twenty minutes' ride. The guide shook
his head ; but we insisted on going. The afternoon had
darkened over ; and for the first time in many months a
gathering canopy of cloud shut out the glory of sunset. We,
however, mounted our donkeys and rode northwards. With
better beasts we might perhaps have gained our end ; as it was,
seeing that it grew darker every moment, we presently gave in,
and instead of trying to push on farther, contented ourselves
with climbing a high mound which commanded the view
towards Teni.

The clouds by this time were fast closing round, and waves
of shadows were creeping over the plain. To our left rose the
near mountain-barrier, dusk and lowering; to our right stretched
the misty corn-flats ; at our feet, all hillocks and open graves,
lay the desolate necropolis. Beyond the palms that fringed
the edge of the desert — beyond a dark streak that marked the
site of Teni — rose, purple in shadow against the twilight, a
steep and solitary hill. This hill, called by the natives Kom-es-
Sultan, or the Mound of the King, was the tumulus we so
desired to see. Viewed from a distance and by so uncertain a
light, it looked e.xactly like a volcanic cone of perhaps a couple
of hundred feet in height. It is however wholly artificial, and
consists of a mass of graves heaped one above another in
historic strata ; each layer, as it were, the record of an era ; the
whole, a kind of human coral reef built up from age to age
with the ashes of generations.

For some years past, the Egyptian Government had been
gradually excavating this extraordinary mound. The lower it
was opened, the more ancient were its contents. So steadily
retrogressive, indeed, were the interments, that it seemed as if
the spade of the digger might possibly strike tombs of the
First Dynasty, and so restore to light relics of men who lived

ABYDUS AND CAIRO. 477

in the age of Mena. " According to Plutarch," wrote Mariette,^
" wealthy Egyptians came from all parts of Egypt to be buried
at Abydus, in order that their bones might rest near Osiris.
Very probably the tombs of Kom-es-Sultan belong to those
personages mentioned by Plutarch. Nor is this the only
interest attaching to the mound of Kom-es-Sultan. The
famous tomb of Osiris cannot be far distant ; and certain
indications lead us to think that it is excavated in precisely
that foundation of rock which serves as the nucleus of this
mound. Thus the persons buried in Kom-es-Sultan lay as
near as possible to the divine tomb. The works now in
progress at this point have therefore a twofold interest. They
may yield tombs yet more and more ancient — tombs even of
the First Dynasty ; and some day or another they may discover
to us the hitherto unknown and hidden entrance to the tomb
of the God." '■

I bitterly regretted at the time that I could not at least
ride to the foot of Kom-es-Sultan ; but I think now that I
prefer to remember it as I saw it from afar off, clothed with
mystery, in the gloom of that dusky evening.

There was a heavy silence in the air, and a melancholy as
of the burden of ages. The tumbled hillocks looked like a
ghastly sea, and beyond the verge of the desert it was already
night. Presently, from among the grave -pits, there crept
towards us a slowly-moving cloud. As it drew nearer — soft,
filmy, shifting, unreal — it proved to be the dust raised by an
immense flock of sheep. On they came, a brown compact
mass, their shepherd showing dimly now and then, through
openings in the cloud. The last pale gleam from above caught
them for a moment ere they melted, ghost-like, into the murky
plain. Then we went down ourselves, and threaded the track
between the mounds and the valley. Palms and houses loomed
vaguely out of the dusk ; and a caravan of camels, stalking by
with swift and noiseless footfall, looked like shadows projected

1 See Itiiieraire de la Haute Egypte : A. Mariette Bey: p. 147.
Alex. 1872.

2 Ibid. p. 148. The hope here expressed was, however, not fulfilled;
tombs of the IVth or Vth Dynasties being, I believe, the earliest dis-
covered. [Note to Second Edition.]

478 A B YD US AND CAIRO.

on a background of mist. As the night deepened the air
became stifling. There were no stars, and we could scarcely
see a j'^ard before us. Crawling slowly along the steep cause-
way, we felt, but could distinguish nothing of the plain
stretching away on either side. Meanwhile the frogs croaked
furiously, and our donkeys stumbled at every step. When at
length we drew near Samata, it was close upon ten o'clock,
and Rei's Hassan had just started with men and torches to
meet us.

Next morning early we once again passed Girgeh, with its
ruined mosque and still unfallen column ; and about noonday
moored at a place called Ayserat, where we paid a visit to a
native gentleman, one Ahmed Abd Ratab Aga, to whom we
carried letters of introduction. Ratab Aga owns large estates
in this province ; is great in horse-flesh ; and lives in patriarchal
fashion surrounded by a numerous clan of kinsfolk and depend-
ants. His residence at Ayserat consists of a cluster of three or
four large houses, a score or so of pigeon-towers, an extensive
garden, stabling, exercising-ground, and a large courtyard ; the
whole enclosed by a wall of circuit, and entered by a fine
Arabesque gateway. He received us in a loggia of lattice-
work overlooking the courtyard, and had three of his finest
horses — a grey, a bay, and a chestnut — brought out for us to
admire. They were just such horses as Velasquez loved to
paint — thick in the neck, small in the head, solid in the barrel,
with wavy manes, and long silky tails set high and standing off
straight in true Arab fashion. We doubted, however, that they
were altogether pur sang. They looked wonderfully picturesque
with their gold - embroidered saddlecloths, peaked saddles
covered with crimson, green, and blue velvet, long shovel-stirrups
and tasselled head-gear. The Aga's brother and nephews put
them through their paces. They knelt to be mounted ; lay
down and died at the word of command ; dashed from perfect
immobility into a furious gallop ; and when at fullest speed,
stopped short, flung themselves back upon their haunches, and
stood like horses of stone. We were told that our host had a
hundred such standing in his stables. Pipes, coffee, and an
endless succession of different kinds of sherbets went round all
the time our visit lasted ; and in the course of conversation, we

ABYDUS AND CAIRO. 479

learned that not only the wages of agricultural labourers, but
even part of the taxes to the Khedive, are here paid in corn.

Before leaving, L., the Little Lady, and the Writer were
conducted to the hareem, and introduced to the ladies of the
establishment. We found them in a separate building with a
separate courtyard, living after the usual dreary way of Eastern
women, with apparently no kind of occupation and not even a
garden to walk in. The Aga's principal wife (I believe he had
but two) was a beautiful woman, with auburn hair, soft brown
eyes, and a lovely complexion. She received us on the thres-
hold, led us into a saloon surrounded by a divan, and with
some pride showed us her five children. The eldest was a
graceful girl of thirteen ; the youngest, a little fellow of four.
Mother and daughter were dressed alike in black robes em-
broidered with silver, pink velvet slippers on bare feet, silver
bracelets and anklets, and full pink Turkish trowsers. They
wore their hair cut straight across the brow, plaited in long tails
behind, and dressed with coins and pendants ; while from the
back of the head there hung a veil of thin black gauze, also
embroidered with silver. Another lady, whom we took for the
second wife, and who was extremely plain, had still richer and
more massive ornaments, but seemed to hold an inferior position
in the hareem. There were perhaps a dozen women and girls
in all, two of whom were black.

One of the little boys had been ill all his short life, and
looked as if he could not last many more months. The poor
mother implored us to prescribe for him. It was in vain to
tell her that we knew nothing of the nature of his disease and
had no skill to cure it. She still entreated, and would take no
refusal ; so in pity we sent her some harmless medicines.

We had little opportunity of observing domestic life in
Egypt. L. visited some of the vice- regal hareems at Cairo,
and brought away on each occasion the same impression of
dreariness. A little embroidery, a few musical toys of Geneva
manufacture, a daily drive on the Shubra road, pipes, cigarettes,
sweetmeats, jewellery, and gossip, fill up the aimless days of
most Egyptian ladies of rank. There are, however, some who
take an active interest in politics ; and in Cairo and Alexandria
the opera -boxes of the Khedive and the great Pashas are

4So ABYDUS AND CAIRO.

nightly occupied by ladies. But it is not by the daily life of
the wives of princes and nobles, but by the life of the lesser
gentry and upper middle-class, that a domestic system should
be judged. These ladies of Ayserat had no London-built
brougham, no Shubra road, no opera. They were absolutely
without mental resources ; and they were even without the
means of taking air and exercise. One could see that time
hung heavy on their hands, and that they took but a feeble
interest in the things around them. The hareem stairs were
dirty ; the rooms were untidy ; the general aspect of the place
was slatternly and neglected. As for the inmates, though all
good-nature and gentleness, their faces bore the expression of
people who are habitually bored. At Luxor, L. and the Writer
paid a visit to the wife of an intelligent and gentlemanly Arab,
son of the late governor of that place. This was a middle-class
hareem. The couple were young, and not rich. They occu-
pied a small house, which commanded no view and had no
garden. Their little courtyard was given up to the poultry ;
their tiny terrace above was less than twelve feet square ; and
they were surrounded on all sides by houses. Yet in this
stifling prison the young wife lived, apparently contented, from
year's end to year's end. She literally never went out. As a
child, she had no doubt enjoyed some kind of liberty ; but as
a marriageable girl, and as a bride, she was as much a prisoner
as a bird in a cage. Born and bred in Luxor, she had never
seen Karnak ; yet Karnak is only two miles distant. We asked
her if she would like to go there with us ; but she laughed
and shook her head. She was incapable even of curiosity.

It seemed to us that the wives of the Fellahin were in
truth the happiest women in Egypt. They work hard and are
bitterly poor ; but they have the free use of their limbs, and
they at least know the fresh air, the sunshine, and the open
fields.

When we left Ayserat, there still lay 335 miles between us
and Cairo. From this time, the navigation of the Nile became
every day more difficult. The dahabeeyah, too, got heated
through and through, so that not even sluicing and swabbing
availed to keep down the temperature. At night when we
went to our sleeping cabins, the timbers alongside of our berths

ABYDUS AND CAIRO.

481

were as hot to the hand as a screen in front of a great jfire.
Our crew, though to the manner born, suffered even more than
ourselves ; and L. at this time had generally a case of sunstroke
on her hands. One by one, we passed the places we had seen
on our way up — Siljt, Manfalut, Qebel Abufayda, Roda,

SAKKIEH AT SIOt.

Minieh. After all, we did not see Beni Hassan. The day we
reached that part of the river, a furious sandstorm was raging ;
such a storm that even the Writer was daunted. Three days
later, we took the rail at Bibbeh and went on to Cairo, leaving
the Philae to follow as fast as wind and weather might permit.
We were so wedded by this time to dahabeeyah-life, that
we felt lost at first in the big rooms at Shepheard's Hotel, and
altogether bewildered in the crowded streets. Yet here was
Cairo, more picturesque, more beautiful than ever. Here were
the same merchants squatting on the same carpets and smoking
the same pipes, in the Tunis bazaar ; here was the same old
cake-seller still ensconced in the same doorway in the Muski ;
here were the same jewellers selling bra'celets in the Khan-Khalili ;
the same money-changers sitting behind their little tables at the
corners of the streets ; the same veiled ladies riding on donkeys
and driving in carriages ; the same hurrying funerals, and noisy
weddings ; the same odd cries, and motley costumes, and unaccus-
tomed trades. Nothing was changed. We soon dropped back
into the old life of sight-seeing and shopping — buying rugs and

2 I

482

ABYDUS AND CAIRO.

silks, and silver ornaments, and old embroideries, and Turkish
slippers, and all sorts of antique and pretty trifles ; going from
Mohammedan mosques to rare old Coptic churches ; dropping
in for an hour or two most afternoons at the Boulak Museum ;
and generally ending the day's work with a drive on the Shubra
road, or a stroll round the Esbekiyeh Gardens.

"in the name of the prophet — CAKES I"

The M61id-en-Nebi, or Festival of the Birth of the Prophet,
was being held at this time in a tract of waste ground on the
road to Old Cairo. Here, in some twenty or thirty large
open tents ranged in a circle, there were readings of the Koran
and meetings of dervishes going on by day and night, without
intermission, for nearly a fortnight. After dark, when the
tents were all ablaze with lighted chandeliers, and the dervishes

ABYDUS AND CAIRO. 483

were howling and leaping, and fireworks were being let off
from an illuminated platform in the middle of the area, the
scene was extraordinary. All Cairo used to be there, on foot
or in carriages, between eight o'clock and midnight every
evening ; the veiled ladies of the Khedive's hareem in their
miniature broughams being foremost among the spectators.

The M61id-en-Nebi ends with the performance of the
D6seh, when the Sheykh of the Saadiyeh Dervishes rides over
a road of prostrate fanatics. L. and the Writer witnessed this
sight from the tent of the Governor of Cairo. Drunk with
opium, fasting, and praying, rolling their heads, and foaming at
the mouth, some hundreds of wretched creatures lay down in
the road packed as close as paving stones, and were walked
and ridden over before our eyes. The standard-bearers came
first ; then a priest reading the Koran aloud ; then the Sheykh
on his white Arab, supported on either side by barefooted
priests. The beautiful horse trod with evident reluctance, and
as lightly and swiftly as possible, on the human causeway
under his hoofs. The Mohammedans aver that no one is
injured, or even bruised,^ on this holy occasion ; but I saw
some men carried away in convulsions, who looked as if they
would never walk again.^

It is difficult to say but a few inadequate words of a place
about which an instructive volume might be written ; yet to
pass the Boulak Museum in silence is impossible. This famous
collection is due, in the first instance, to the liberality of the
late Khedive and the labours of Mariette. With the exception
of Mehemet AH, who excavated the Temple of Denderah, no
previous Viceroy of Egypt had ever interested himself in the

1 " It is said that these persons, as well as the Sheykh, make use of
certain words (that is, repeat prayers and invocations) on the day preceding
this performance, to enable them to endure without injury the tread of the
horse ; and that some not thus prepared, having ventured to lie down to be
ridden over, have, on more than one occasion, been either killed or severely
injured The performance is considered as a miracle vouchsafed through
supernatural power, and which has been granted to every successive
Sheykh of the Saadeeyeh." See Lane's Modern Egyptians, chap. xxiv. p.
453. Lond- i860.

2 This barbarous rite has been abolished by the present Khedive
[Note to Second Edition.]

484 ABYDUS AND CAIRO.

archaeology of the country. Those who cared for such rubbish
as encumbered the soil or lay hidden beneath the sands of the
desert, were free to take it ; and no favour was more frequently
asked, or more readily granted, than permission to dig for "antee-
kahs." Hence the Egyptian wealth of our museums. Hence
the numerous private collections dispersed throughout Europe.
Ismail Pasha, however, put an end to that wholesale pillage; and,
for the first time since ever " mummy was sold for balsam," or
for bric-a-brac, it became illegal to export antiquities. Thus,
for the first time, Egypt began to possess a national collection.

Youngest of great museums, the Boulak collection is the
wealthiest in the world in portrait-statues of private individuals,
in funerary tablets, in amulets, and in personal relics of the
ancient inhabitants of the Nile Valley. It is necessarily less
rich in such colossal statues as fill the great galleries of the
British Museum, the Turin Museum, and the Louvre. These,
being above ground and comparatively few in number, were
for the most part seized upon long since, and transported to
Europe. The Boulak statues are the product of the tombs.
The famous wooden " Sheykh " about which so much has been
written,^ the magnificent diorite statue of Khafra (Chephren),
the builder of the Second Pyramid, the two marvellous sitting
statues of Prince Ra-hotep and Princess Nefer-t, are all
portraits ; and, like their tombs, were executed during the
lifetime of the persons represented. Crossing the threshold of
the Great Vestibule,^ one is surrounded by a host of these
extraordinary figures, erect, coloured, clothed, all but in
motion. It is like entering the crowded anteroom of a royal
palace in the time of the Ancient Empire.

The greater number of the Boulak portrait -statues are
sculptured in what is called the hieratic attitude ; that is, with
the left arm down and pressed close to the body, the left hand
holding a roll of papyrus, the right leg advanced, and the right

f' 1 See Egypt of the Pharaohs and the Khedive, J. B. ZiNCKE, chap. ix. p.
72. Lond. 1873. Also La Sculpture Egyptien7ie, par E. SOLDI, p. 57.
Paris, 1876. Also The Ethnology of Egypt, by PROFESSOR Owen, C.B.
fotirnal of Anthropological htstitute, vol. iv. 1874, p. 227. The name of
this personage was Ra-em-ka.

2 It is in the Great Vestibule that we find the statue of Ti. See chap,
iv. p. 59.

ABYDUS AND CAIRO.

485

hand raised, as grasping the walking staff. It occurred to me
that there might be a deeper significance than at first sight
appears in this conventional attitude, and that it perhaps
suggests the moment of resurrection, when the deceased, holding
fast by his copy of the Book of the Dead, walks forth from his
tomb into the light of life eternal.

Of all the statues here — one may say, indeed, of all known
Egyptian statues — those of Prince Ra-hotep and Princess
Nefer-t are the most wonderful. They are probably the oldest

portrait-statues in the world.^ They come from a tomb of the
Ilird Dynasty, and are contemporary with Snefru, a king who
reigned before the time of Khufu and Khafra. That is to say,
these people who sit before us side by side, coloured to the
life, fresh and glowing as the day when they gave the artist
his last sitting, lived at a time when the great pyramids of
Ghizeh were not yet built, and at a date which is variously
calculated as from about 6300 to 4000 years before the

^ There is no evidence to show that the statues of Sepa and Nesa in
(J^e Louvre are older than the IVth Dynasty.

486 ABYDUS AND CAIRO.

present day. The princess wears her hair precisely as it is still
worn in Nubia, and her necklace of cabochon drops is of a
pattern much favoured by the modern Ghawazi. The eyes of
both statues are inserted. The eyeball, which is set in an
eyelid of bronze, is made of opaque white quartz, with an iris
of rock-crystal enclosing a pupil of some kind of brilliant metal.
This treatment — of which there are one or two other instances
extant — gives to the eyes a look of intelligence that is almost
appalling. There is a play of light within the orb, and
apparently a living moisture upon the surface, which has never
been approached by the most skilfully made glass eyes of
modern manufacture.^

Of the jewels of Queen Aah-hotep, of the superb series of
engraved scarabaei, of the rings, amulets, and toilette ornaments,
of the vases in bronze, silver, alabaster, and porcelain, of the
libation -tables, the woven stuffs, the terra -cottas, the artists'
models, the lamps, the silver boats, the weapons, the papyri,
the thousand -and -one curious personal relics and articles of
domestic use which are brought together within these walls,
I have no space to tell. Except the collection of Pompeian

1 " Enfin nous signalerons I'importance des statues de Meydoum au
point de vue ethnographique. Si la race Egyptienne etait k cette ^poque
celle dont las deux statues nous offrent le type, il faut convenir qu'elle ne
ressemblait en rien k la race qui habitait le nord de I'Egypte quelques
ann^es seulement apr^s Snefrou." — Cat. du Miisee de Boiilaq. A. Mariette
Bey. p. 277; Paris, 1872.

Of the heads of these two statues Professor Owen remarks that " the
brain-case of the male is a full oval, the parietal bosses feebly indicated ;
in vertical contour the fronto-parietal part is little elevated, rather flattened
than convex ; the frontal sinuses are slightly indicated ; the forehead is
fairly developed but not prominent. The lips are fuller than in the
majority of Europeans ; but the mouth is not prognathic. . . . The
features of the female conform in type to those of the male, but show more
delicacy and finish. . . . The statue of the female is coloured of a lighter
tint than that of the male, indicating the effects of better clothing and
less exposure to the sun. And here it may be remarked that the racial
character of complexion is significantly manifested by such evidences of
the degree of tint due to individual exposure. . . . The primitive race-tint
of the Egyptians is perhaps more truly indicated by the colour of the
princess in these painted portrait-statues than by that of her more scantily
clad husband or male relative." — The Ethnology of Egypt ^ by SiR Richard
Owen, K.C.B. Joii7-nal of Atithropological Institiite^ vol. iv. Lend. 1874 ;
p. 225 et seq.

ABYDUS AND CAIRO. 487

relics in Naples, there is nothing elsewhere to compare with
the collection at Boulak ; and the villas of Pompeii have
yielded no such gems and jewels as the tombs of ancient
Egypt. It is not too much to say that if these dead and
mummied people could come back to earth, the priest would
here find all the Gods of his Pantheon ; the king his sceptre ;
the queen her crown-jewels ; the scribe his palette ; the soldier
his arms ; the workman his tools ; the barber his razors ; the
husbandman his hoe ; the housewife her broom ; the child his
toys ; the beauty her combs and kohl bottles and mirrors.
The furniture of the house is here, as well as the furniture of
the tomb. Here, too, is the broken sistrum buried with the
dead in token of the grief of the living.

Waiting the construction of a more suitable edifice, the
present building gives temporary shelter to the collection. In
the meanwhile, if there was nothing else to tempt the traveller
to Cairo, the Boulak Museum would alone be worth the journey
from Europe.

The first excursion one makes on returning to Cairo, the
last one makes before leaving, is to Ghizeh. It is impossible
to get tired of the Pyramids. Here L. and the Writer spent
their last day with the Happy Couple.

We left Cairo early, and met all the market-folk coming in
from the country — donkeys and carts laden with green stuff,
and veiled women with towers of baskets on their heads. The
Khedive's new palace was swarming already with masons, and
files of camels were bringing limestone blocks for the builders.
Next comes the open corn -plain, part yellow, part green —
the long straight road bordered with acacias — beyond all,
the desert -platform, and the Pyramids, half in light, half in
greenish -grey shadow, against the horizon. I never could
understand why it is that the Second Pyramid, though it is
smaller and farther off, looks from this point of view bigger
than the First. Farther on, the brown Fellahin, knee -deep
in purple blossom, are cutting the clover. The camels carry it
away. The goats and buffaloes feed in the clearings. Then
comes the half-way tomb nestled in greenery, where men and
horses stay to drink ; and soon we are skirting a great back-
water which reflects the pyramids like a mirror. Villages,

488 ABYDUS AND CAIRO.

sh^diifs, herds and flocks, tracts of palms, corn-flats, and spaces
of rich, dark fallow, now succeed each other ; and then once
more comes the sandy slope, and the cavernous ridge of ancient
yellow rock, and the Great Pyramid with its shadow -side
towards us, darkening the light of day.

Neither L. nor the Writer went inside the Great Pyramid.
The Idle Man did so this day, and L.'s maid on another
occasion ; and both reported of the place as so stifling within,
so foul underfoot, and so fatiguing, that, somehow, we each
time put it off, and ended by missing it. The ascent is
extremely easy. Rugged and huge as are the blocks, there is
scarcely one upon which it is not possible to find a half-way
rest for the toe of one's boot, so as to divide the distance.
With the help of three Arabs, nothing can well be less fatigu-
ing. As for the men, they are helpful and courteous, and as
clever as possible ; and coax one on from block to block in all
the languages of Europe.

" Pazienza, Signora ! Allez doucement — all serene ! We
half-way now — dem halben-weg, Fraulein. Ne vous pressez-
pas, Mademoiselle. Chi va sano, va lontano. Six step more,
and ecco la cima !"

" You should add the other half of the proverb, amici," said
I. " Chi va forte, va alia morte."

My Arabs had never heard this before, and were delighted
with it. They repeated it again and again, and committed it
to memory with great satisfaction. I asked them why they
did not cut steps in the blocks, so as to make the ascent easier
for ladies. The answer was ready and honest.

" No, no. Mademoiselle ! Arab very stupid to do that. If
Arab makes good steps, Howadji goes up alone. No more
want Arab man to help him up, and Arab man earn no
more dollars !"

They offered to sing " Yankee Doodle " when we reached
the top ; then, finding we were English, shouted " God save the
Queen ! " and told us that the Prince of Wales had given £^o
to the Pyramid Arabs when he came here with the Princess
two years before ; which, however, we took the liberty to doubt.

The space on the top of the (jreat Pyramid is said to be
30 feet square. It is not, as I had expected, a level platform.

ABYDUS AND CAIRO.

489

Some blocks of the next tier remain, and two or three of the
tier next above that ; so making pleasant seats and shady
corners. What struck us most on reaching the top, was the
startling nearness, to all appearance, of the Second Pyramid.
It seemed to rise up beside us like a mountain ; yet so close,
that I fancied I could almost touch it by putting out my hand.
Every detail of the surface, every crack and parti-coloured stain
in the shining stucco that yet clings about the apex, was dis-
tinctly visible.

The view from this place is immense. The country is so
flat, the atmosphere so clear, the standpoint so isolated, that
one really sees more and sees farther than from many a
mountain summit of ten or twelve thousand feet. The ground

" I'lifiitifc

ShlllNX AND PYKAMIDb

lies, as it were, immediately under one ; and the great
Necropolis is seen as in a ground -plan. The effect must, I
imagine, be exactly like the effect of a landscape seen from a
balloon. Without ascending the Pyramid, it is certainly not
possible to form a clear notion of the way in which this great
burial-field is laid out. We see from this point how each royal
pyramid is surrounded by its quadrangle of lesser tombs, some
in the form of small pyramids, others partly rock-cut, partly
built of massive slabs, like the roofing-stones of the Temples.

490 ABYDUS AND CAIRO.

We see how Khufu and Khafra and Menkara lay, each under
his mountain of stone, with his family and his nobles around
him. We see the great causeways which moved Herodotus to
such wonder, and along which the giant stones were brought.
Recognising how clearly the place is a great cemetery, one
marvels at the ingenious theories which turn the pyramids into
astronomical observatories, and abstruse standards of measure-
ment. They are the grandest graves ^ in all the world — and
they are nothing more.

A little way to the southward, from the midst of a sandy
hollow, rises the head of the Sphinx. Older than the Pyramids,
older than history, the monster lies couchant like a watch-dog,
looking ever to the east, as if for some dawn that has not yet
risen.^ A depression in the sand close by marks the site of

^ The word pyramid, for which so many derivations have been
suggested, is shown in the Geometrical Papyrus of the British Museum to
be distinctly Egyptian, and is written Per-efn-us.

2 " On sait par une stMe du musee de Boulaq, que le grand Sphinx est
anterieur au Rois Cheops de la IV= Dynastie." Die. (TArch. Egyptienne :
Article Sphinx. P, PlERRET. Paris, 1875,

[It was the opinion of Mariette, and is the opinion of Professor Maspero,
that the Sphinx dates from the inconceivably remote period of the Horshesu,
or " followers of Horus " ; that is to say, from those prehistoric times when
Egypt was ruled by a number of petty chieftains, before Mena welded the
ancient principalities into a united kingdom. Those principalities then
became the Nomes, or Provinces, of historic times ; and the former local
chieftains became semi-independent feudatories, such as we find surviving
with undiminished authority and importance during the Xllth Dynasty. —
Note to Second Edition.]

A long-disputed question as to the meaning of the Sphinx has of late
been finally solved. The Sphinx is shown by M. J. de Rouge, according
to an inscription at Edfu, to represent a transformation of Horus, who in
order to vanquish Set (Typhon) took the shape of a human-headed lion.
It was under this form that Horus was adored in the Nome Leontopolites.
In the above-mentioned Stela of Bonlak, known as the stone of Cheops, the
Great Sphinx is especially designated as the Sphinx of Hor-em-Khou, or
Horus-on-the-Horizon. This is evidently in reference to the orientation of
the figure. It has often been asked why the Sphinx is turned to the east.
I presume the answer would be. Because Horus, avenger of Osiris, looks
to the east, awaiting the return of his father from the lower world. As
Horus was supposed to have reigned over Egypt, every Pharaoh took the
title of Living Horus, Golden Hawk, etc. etc. Hence the features of the
reigning King were always given to the Sphinx form when architecturally
employed, as at Karnak, Wady Sabooah, Tanis, etc. etc,

ABYDUS AND CAIRO. 491

that strange monument miscalled the Temple of the Sphinx.^
Farther away to the west on the highest slope of this part of
the desert platform, stands the Pyramid of Menkara (Mycerinus).
It has lost but five feet of its original height, and from this
distance it looks quite perfect.

Such — set in a waste of desert — are the main objects, and
the nearest objects, on which our eyes first rest. As a whole,
the view is more long than wide, being bounded to the westward
by the Libyan range, and to the eastward by the Mokattam hills.
At the foot of those yellow hills, divided from us by the culti-
vated plain across which we have just driven, lies Cairo, all
glittering domes half seen through a sunlit haze. Overlooking
the fairy city stands the Mosque of the Citadel, its mast-like
minarets piercing the clearer atmosphere. Far to the north-
ward, traversing reach after reach of shadowy palm-groves, the
eye loses itself in the dim and fertile distances of the Delta.
To the west and south, all is desert. It begins here at our
feet — a rolling wilderness of valleys and slopes and rivers and
seas of sand, broken here and there by abrupt ridges of rock,
and mounds of ruined masonry, and open graves. A silver
line skirts the edge of this dead world, and vanishes southward
in the sun-mist that shimmers on the farthest horizon. To the
left of that silver line we see the quarried cliffs of Turra,
marble-white ; opposite Turra, the plumy palms of Memphis.
On the desert platform above, clear though faint, the Pyramids
of Abusir and SaklcSrah, and DahshOr. Every stage of the

1 It is certainly not a Temple. It may be a mastaba, or votive chapel.
It looks most like a tomb. It is entirely built of plain and highly-polished
monoliths of alabaster and red granite, laid square and simply, like a sort
of costly and magnificent Stonehenge ; and it consists of a forecourt, a hall
of pillars, three principal chambers, some smaller chambers, a secret recess,
and a well. The chambers contain horizontal niches which it is difficult
to suppose could have been intended for anything but the reception of
mummies ; and at the bottom of the well were found three statues of King
Khafra (Chephren) ; one of which is the famous diorite portrait-statue of
the Boulak Museum. In an interesting article contributed to the Revue
Arch. (vol. xxvi. Paris, 1873), M. du Barry-Merval has shown, as it
seems, quite clearly, that the Temple of the Sphinx is in fact a dependency
of the Second Pyramid. It is possible that the niches may have been
designed for the Queen and family of Khafra, whose own mummy wauld of
course be buried in bis Pyramid.

492 A B YD US AND CAIRO.

Pyramid of Ouenephes, banded in light and shade, is plain to
see. So is the dome-like summit of the great Pyramid of
Dahshfir, Even the brick ruin beside it which we took for a
black rock as we went up the river, and which looks like a
black rock still, is perfectly visible. Farthest of them all,
showing pale and sharp amid the palpitating blaze of noon,
stands, like an unfinished tower of Babel, the Pyramid of
Meydum. It is in this direction that our eyes turn oftenest —
to the measureless desert in its mystery of light and silence ;
to the Nile where it gleams out again and again, till it melts at
last into that faint far distance beyond which lie Thebes, and
Philae, and Abou Simbel.

APPENDIX I.
A. M'Callum, Esq, to the Editor of 'The Times."

yiR — It may interest your readers to learn that at the south aide of the great Temple
of Abou Simbel, I found the entrance to a painted chamber rock-cut, and measuring
21 ft. 2^ in., by 14 ft. 8 in., and 12 ft. high to the spring of the arch, elaborately
sculptured and painted in the best style of the best period of Egyptian art, bearing
the portraits of Rameses the Great and his cartouches, and in a state of the highest
preservation. This chamber is preceded by the ruins of a vaulted atrium, in sun-
dried brickwork, and adjoins the remains of what would appear to be a massive wall
or pylon, which contains a staircase terminating in an arched doorway leading to the
vaulted atrium before mentioned.

The doorway of the painted chamber, the staircase, and the arch, were all buried
in sand and debris. The chamber appears to have been covered and lost sight of
since a very early period, being wholly free from mutilation, and from the scribbling
of travellers ancient and modern.

The staircase was not opened until the i8th, and the bones of a woman and
child, with two small cinerary urns, were there discovered by a gentleman of our
party, buried in the sand. This was doubtless a subsequent interment. Whether
this painted chamber is the inner sanctuaiy of a small Temple, or part of a tomb, or
only a speos, like the well-known grottoes at Ibrim, is a question for future excavators
to determine. — I have the honour to be. Sir, yours, etc. etc.

Andrew M'Callum-

KoROSKO, Nubia, Feb. i6ih, 1S74.

APPENDIX II.

The Egyptian Pantheon.

" The deities of ancient Egypt consist of celestial, terrestrial, and infernal gods, and
of many inferior personages, either representatives of the greater gods or else attend-
ants upon them. Most of the gods were connected with the Sun, and represented
that luminary in its passage through the upper hemisphere or Heaven and the lower
hemisphere or Hades. To the deities of the Solar cycle belonged the great gods of
Thebes and Heliopolis. In the local worship of Egypt the deities were arranged in
local triads: thus, at Memphis, Ptah, his wife Merienplah, and their son Nefer
Atum, formed a triad, to which was sometimes added the goddess Bast or Bubastis.
At Abydus the local triad was Osiris, Isis, and Horus, with Nephthys ; at Thebes,

1 This letter appeared in 'The Times' of March iSth, 1874.

494 APPENDIX.

Amen-Ra or Ammon, Mut, and Chons, with Neith ; at Elephantine, Kneph, Anuka,
Seti, and Hak. In most instances the names of the gods are Egyptian ; thus, Ptah
meant ' the opener ' ; Amen, ' the concealed ' ; Ra, ' the sun ' or ' day ' ; Athor,
' the house of Horus ' ; but some few, especially of later times, were introduced from
Semitic sources, as Bal or Baal, Astaruta or Astarte, Khen or Kiun, Respu or
Reseph. Besides the principal gods, several inferior or parhedral gods, sometimes
personifications of the faculties, senses, and other objects, are introduced into the
religious system, and genii, spirits, or personified souls of deities formed part of the
same. At a period subsequent to their first introduction the gods were divided into
three orders. The first or highest comprised eight deities, who were different in the
Memphian and Theban systems. They were supposed to have reigned over Egypt
before the time of mortals. The eight gods of the first order at Memphis were —
I. Ptah; 2 Shu; 3. Tefnu ; 4. Seb ; 5. Nut; 6. Osiris; 7. Isis and Horus; 8.
Athor. Those of Thebes were — i. Amen-Ra; 2. Mentu ; 3. Atum ; 4. Shu and
Tefnu ; 5. Seb ; 6. Osiris ; 7. Set and Nephthys ; 8. Horus and Athor. The gods
of the second order were twelve in number, but the name of one only, an Egyptian
Hercules, has been preserved. The third order is stated to have comprised Osiris,
who, it will be seen, belonged to the first order." — Gtnde to the First and Second
Egyptian Rooms ; Brit. Musa. S. Birch, 1874.

The Gods most commonly represented upon the monuments are Phtah, Knum,
Ra, Amen-Ra, Khem, Osiris, Nefer Atum or Tum, Thoth, Seb, Set, Khons, Horus,
Maut, Neith, Isis, Nut, Hathor, and Bast. They are distinguished by the following
attributes : —

Phtah, or Ptah : — In form a mummy, holding the emblem called by some the
Nilometer, by others the emblem of Stability. Called " the Father of the Beginning,
the Creator of the Egg of the Sun and Moon." Chief Deity of Memphis.

Ktuph, Knum, or Knoiiphis ' — Ram-headed. Called the Maker of Gods and
men ; the Soul of the Gods. Chief Deity of Elephantine and the Cataracts.

Pa : — Hawk-headed, and crowned with the sun-disk encircled by an asp. The
divine disposer and organiser of the world. Adored throughout Egypt.

Amen-Ra: — Of human form, crowned with a flat -topped cap and two long
straight plumes ; clothed in the schenti ; his flesh sometimes painted blue. There
are various forms of this god (see footnote, p. 341), but he is most generally de-
scribed as King of the Gods. Chief Deity of Thebes.

Khem : — Of human form mummified ; wears headdress of Amen-Ra ; his right
hand uplifted, holding the flail. The God of productiveness and generation. Chief
Deity of Khemmis, or Ekhmeem. Is identified in later times with Amen, and called
Amen-Khem.

Osiris: — Of human form, mummified, crowned with a mitre, and holding the
flail and crook. Called the Good Being ; the Lord above all ; the One Lord. Was
the God of the lower world ; Judge of the dead ; and representative of the Sun below
the horizon. Adored throughout Egypt. Local Deity of Abydus.

Nefer Atum: — Human -headed, and crowned with the pschent. This God
represented the setting sun, or the sun descending to light the lower world. Local
Deity of Heliopolis.

Thoth : — In form a man, ibis-headed, generally depicted with the pen and palette
of a scribe. Was the God of the moon, and of letters. Local Deity of Sesoon, or
Hermopolis.

Seb: — The " Father of the Gods," and deity of terrestrial vegetation. In form a
man with a goose upon his head.

Set: — Represented by a symbolic animal, with a muzzle and ears like a jackal,
the body of an ass, and an upright tail, like the tail of a lion. Was originally a
warlike God, and became in later times the symbol of evil and the enemy of Osiris.

Khons: — Hawk-headed, crowned with the sun-disk and horns. Is represented
sometimes as a youth with the side-lock, standing on a crocodile.

APPENDIX. 495

Horus: — Horus appears variously as Horus, Horus Aroeris, and Horus Har-
pakhrat (Harpocrates), or Horus the child. Is represented under the first two forms
as a man, hawk-headed, wearing the double crown of Egypt ; in the latter as a child
with the side-lock. Local Deity of Edfu (Apollinopolis Magna).

Maut : — A woman draped, and crowned with the pschent ; generally with a cap
below the pschent representing a vulture. Adored at Thebes.

Neith : — A woman draped, holding sometimes a bow and arrows, crowned with
with the crown of Lower Egypt. She presided over war, and the loom. Worshipped
at Thebes.

Ists : — A woman crowned with the sun-disk surmounted by a throne, and some-
times enclosed between horns. Adored at Abydus and Philae. Her soul resided in
Sothis, or the Dog-star.

JVui : — A woman curved so as to touch the ground with her fingers. She repre-
sents the vault of heaven, and is the mother of the Gods.

Hathor : — Cow -headed, and crowned with the disk and plumes. Deity of
Amenti, or the Egyptian Hades. Worshipped at Denderah.

Bast and Sekhet : — Bast and Sekhet appear to be two forms of the same Goddess.
As Sekhet she is represented as a woman, lion-headed, with the disk and uroeus ; as
Bast, she is cat-headed, and holds a sistrum. Adored at Bubastis.

APPENDIX III.

The Religious Belief of the Egyptians.

Did the Egyptians believe in one Eternal God, whose attributes were merely sym-
bolised by their numerous deities ; or must the whole structure of their faith be
resolved into a solar myth, with its various and inevitable ramifications ? This is
the great problem of Egyptology, and it is a problem that has not yet been solved.
Egyptologists differ so widely on the subject, that it is impossible to reconcile their
opinions. As not even the description of a temple is complete without some refer-
ence to this important question, and as the question itself underlies every notion we
may form of ancient Egypt and ancient Egyptians, I have thought it well to group
here a few representative extracts from the works of one or two of the greatest
authorities upon the subject.

" The religion of the Egyptians consisted of an extended polytheism represented
by a series of local groups. The idea of a single deity self-existing or produced
was involved in the conception of some of the principal gods, who are said to have
given birth to or produced gods, men, all beings and things. Other deities were
considered to be self-produced. The Sun was the older object of worship, and in his
various forms, as the rising, midday, and setting Sun, was adored under different
names, and was often united, especially at Thebes, to the types of other deities, as
Amen and Mentu. The oldest of all the local deities, Ptah, who was worshipped
at Memphis, was a demiurgos or creator of heaven, earth, gods and men, and not
identified with the Sun. Besides the worship of the solar gods, that of Osiris
extensively prevailed, and with it the antagonism of Set, the Egyptian devil, the
metempsychosis or transmigration of the soul, the future judgment, the purgatory or
Hades, the Karneter, the Aahhi or Elysium, and final union of the soul to the body
after the lapse of several centuries. Besides the deities of Heaven, the light, and the
lower world, others personified the elements or presided over the operations of nature,
the seasons, and events." — Guide to the First and Second Egyptian Rooms: Brit.
Mus. S. Birch, 1874.

•* This religion, obscured as it is by a complex mythology, has lent itself to many

4g6 APPENDIX.

interpretations of a contradictoiy nature, none of which have been unanimously
adopted; But that which is beyond doubt, and which shines forth from the texts
for the whole world's acceptance, is the belief in one God. The polytheism of the
monuments is but an outward show. The innumerable Gods of the Pantheon are
but manifestations of the One Being in his various capacities. That taste for allegory
which created the hieroglyphic writing, found vent likewise in the expression of the
religious idea ; that idea being, as it were, stifled in the later periods by a too-abun-
dant symboUsm." — P. Pierret, Dictionnaire d'Arch. Egyptieniie, 1875. Trans-
lated from article on *'■ Religion."

" This God of the Egyptians was unique, perfect, endued with knowledge and
intelligence, and so far incomprehensible that one can scarcely say in what respects
he is incomprehensible. lie is the one who exists by essence ; the one sole life of
all substance ; the one single generator in heaven and earth who is not himself
engendered ; the father of fathers ; the mother of mothers ; always the same ; im.-
mutable in immutable perfection ; existing equally in the past, the present, and the
future. He fills the universe in such wise that no earthly image can give the feeblest
notion of his immensity. He is felt everywhere ; he is tangible nowhere." — G.
Maspero. Translated from Histoire Aucienne des Peuples de V Orient. Paris, 1876,
chap, i., p. 26.

" Unfortunately, the more we study the religion of ancient Egypt, the more our
doubts accumulate with regard to the character which must finally be attributed to
it. The excavations carried on of late at Denderah and Edfu have opened up to us
an extraordinary fertile source of material. These Temples are covered with texts,
and present precisely the appearance of two books which authoritatively treat not
only of the Gods to which these two Temples are dedicated, but of the religion under
its more general aspects. But neither in these Temples, nor in those which have
been long known to us, appears the One God of Jamblichus. If Ammon is ' The
First of the First ' at Thebes, if Phtah is at Memphis ' The Father of all Beings,
without Beginning or End,' so also is every other Egyptian God separately endowed
with these attributes of the Divine Being. In other words, we everywhere find Gods
who are uncreate and immortal ; but nowhere that unique, invisible Deity, without
name and without form, who was supposed to hover above the highest summit of the
Egyptian pantheon. The Temple of Denderah, now explored to the end of its most
hidden inscriptions, of a certainty furnishes no trace of this Deity. The one result
which above all others seems to be educed from the study of this Temple, is that
(according to the Egyptians) the Universe was God himself, and that Pantheism
formed the foundation of their religion." — A. Mariette Bey. Translated from
Itineraire de la Hatite Egypte. Alexandria, 1872, p. 54.

" The Sun is the most ancient object of Egyptian worship found upon the monu-
ments. His birth each day when he springs from the bosom of the nocturnal heaven
is the natural emblem of the eternal generation of the divinity. Hence the celestial
space became identified with the divine mother. It was particularly the nocturnal
heaven which was represented by this personage. The rays of the sun, as they
awakened all nature, seemed to give life to animated beings. Hence that which
doubtless was originally a symbol, became the foundation of the religion. It is the
Sun himself whom we find habitually invoked as the supreme being. The addition
of his Egyptian name, Ra, to the names of certain local divinities, would seem to
show that this identification constituted a second epoch in the history of the religions
of the Valley of the Nile." — Viscount E. de Rouge. Translated from Notice Som-
maire des Monume7its Egyptiens dii Louvre. Paris, 1S73, p. 120.

That the religion, whether based on a solar myth or upon a genuine belief in a
spiritual God, became grossly material in its later developments, is apparent to every
student of the monuments. M. Maspero has the following remarks on the degenera-
tion of the old faith : —

•' In the course of ages, the sense of the religion became obscured. In the texts

APPENDIX. 497

of Greek and Roman date, that lofty conception of the divinity which had been
cherished by the early theologians of Egypt still peeps out here and there. Frag-
mentary phrases and epithets yet prove that the fundamental principles of the religion
are not quite forgotten. For the most part, however, we find that we no longer have
to do with the infinite and intangible God of ancient days ; but rather with a God of
fl^sh and blood who lives upon earth, and has so abased himself as to be no more
than a human king. It is no longer this God of whom no man knew either the
form or the substance : — it is Kneph at Esneh ; Hathor at Denderah ; Horus, king
of the divine dynasty, at Edfu. This king has a court, ministers, an army, a fleet.
His eldest son, Horhat, Prince of Gush and heir-presumptive to the throne, commands
the troops. His first minister Thoth, the inventor of letters, has geography and
rhetoric at his fingers' ends ; is Historiographer-Royal ; and is entrusted with the
duty of recording the victories of the king and of celebrating them in high-sounding
phraseology. When this God makes war upon his neighbour Typhon, he makes no
use of the divine weapons of which we should take it for granted that he could dispose
at will. He calls out his archers and his chariots ; descends the Nile in his galley,
as might the last new Pharaoh ; directs marches and counter-marches ; fights planned
battles ; carries cities by storm, and brings all Egypt in submission to his feet. We
see here that the Egyptians of Ptolemaic times had substituted for the one God of
their ancestors a line of God-Kings, and had embroidered these modern legends with
a host of fantastic details." — G. Maspero. Translated from Histoire Ancienne da
Pmples de r Orient. Paris, 1876, chap. i. pp. 50-51.

APPENDIX IV.
Egyptian Chronology.

"The chronology of Egypt has been a disputed point for centuries. The Egyptians
had no cycle, and only dated in the regnal years of their monarchs. The principal
Greek sources have been the canon of Ptolemy, drawn up in the second centurj' a. D. ,
and the lists of the dynasties extracted from the historical work of Manetho, an
Egyptian priest, who lived in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, B.C. 285-247. The
discrepancies between these lists and the monuments have given rise to many schemes
and rectifications of the chronology. The principal chronological points of informa-
tion obtained from the monuments are the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses, B.C. 527,
the commencement of the reign of Psammetichus I, B.C. 665, the reign of Tirhaka,
about B.C. 693, and that of Bocchoris, about B.C. 720, the synchronism of the reign
of Shishak I with the capture of Jerusalem, about B.C. 970. The principal monu-
ments throwing light on other parts of the chronology are the recorded heliacal risings
of Sothis, or the Dog-star, in the reigns of Thothmes HI and Rameses H, HI,
VI, IX, the date of 400 years from the time of Rameses II to the Shepherd kings,
the dated sepulchral tablets of the bull Apis at the Serapeum, the lists of kings at
Sakkarah, Thebes, and Abydus, the chronological canon of the Turin papyrus, and
other incidental notices. But of the anterior dynasties no certain chronological dates
are afforded by the monuments, those hitherto proposed not having stood the test of
historical or philological criticism." — S. BiRCH, LL.D. : Guide to the First and
Second Eg)'ptian Rooms at the Brit. Museum. 1874, p. lO.

As some indication of the wide divergence of opinion upon this subject, it is
enough to point out that the German Egyptologists alone differ as to the date of
Menes or Mena (the first authentic king of the ancient empire), to the following
extent : —

2 K

498

APPENDIX.

B.C.

BoECKH places

Mena in

5702

Unger „

5613

Brugsch ,,

4455

Lauth ,,

4157

Lepsiur

3892

BUNSEN „

3623

Mariette, though recognising the need for extreme caution in the acceptance or
rejection of any of these calculations, inclined on the whole to abide by the lists of
Manetho ; according to which the thirty-four recorded dynasties would stand as
follows : —

.ANCIENT EMPIRE.

NEW EMPIRE.

Dynasties. Capitals.

H.C.

DVNASTIE

s. Capit.^ls.

B.C.

I- X This

rsoo4

XVIII.

1703

II. j . . . .

1 4751

XIX.

V Thebes .

1462

III.)

IV. -Memphis .

v.j

( 4449

XX.

1288

\ 4235
I 3951

XXI.

Tanis

IIIO

XXII.

Bubastis .

980

VI. Elephantine .

3703

XXIII.

Tanis

810

vri. u.

XXIV.

Sai's

721

yjjj_ j Memphis .

3500

XXV.

(Ethiopians)

715

^^' ( « 1 r

/3358

XXVI.

Sais

665

V 1 Hcracleopous

I 3240

XXVII.

(Persians)

527

XXVIII.

Sais

405

MIDDLE EMPIRE.

XXIX.

Mendes .

399

XI.)

[ 3064

XXX.

Sebennytis

378

XII. [-Thebes

XXXI.

(Persians)

340

XIII. j

XIV. XoYs . . . .

2398

LOWER EMPIRE.

XV.)
XVI. '-Shepherd Kings .
XVII. j

XXXII.

Macedonians .

332

2214

XXXIII.

(Greeks) .

305

XXXIV.

(Romans)

To this chronology may be opposed the brief table of dates compiled by M.
Chabas. This table represents what may be called the medium school of Egyptian
chronology, and is offered by M. Chnbas, " not as an attempt to reconcile sj-stems,"
but as an aid to the classification ot certain broadly indicated epochs.

Mena and the commencement of the .\ncieni Empire
Construction of the great Pyramids .
Vlth Dynasty

Xllth Dynasty

Shepherd Invasion .
■ Expulsion of Shepherds, and conmiencement of tlie New P^mpirc
Thothmes III . . .

Seti I and Rameses II ^ .

Sheshonk (Shishak), the conqueror of Jerusalem

Sai'tic Dynasties . _ ; .

Cambyses and the Persians .
Second Persian conquest

. Ptolemies . . , .

4000

3300

2800

f 2400

( 2000

1800

1700

f 1500

\ 1400

1000

/700

( 600

500

400

/■300

-! 200

I 100

APPENDIX.

499

APPENDIX V.

Contemporary Chronology of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Babylon.

A VERY important addition to our chronological information with regard to the
synchronous history of Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Babylonia has
been brought to light during this present year (1888) by the great discovery of cunei-
form tablets at Tel-el-Amarna in Upper Egypt. These tablets consist for the most
part of letters and despatches sent to Amenhotep III and Amenhotep IV by the
kings of Babylonia and the princes and governors of Palestine, Syria, and Meso-
potamia ; some being addressed to Amenhotep IV (Khu-en-Aten) by Burna-buryas,
King of Babylonia, who lived about B.C. 1430. This gives us the date of the life
and reign of Amenhotep IV, and consequently the approximate date of the founda-
tion of the city known to us as Tel-el-Amarna, and of the establishment of the new
religion of the Disk-worship ; and it is the earliest synchronism yet established between
the history of ancient Egypt and that of any of her contemporaries.

From these tablets we also learn that the consort of Amenhotep IV was a
Syrian princess, and daughter of Duschratta, King of Naharina (called in the tablets
" the land of Mitanni ") on the upper Euphrates. For a full and learned descrip-
tion of some of the most interesting of these newly-discovered documents, see Dr.
Erman's paper, entitled Der Thontafelfund von Tell Amarna, read before the Berlin
-Academy on 3d May 188S.

THE END.

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